DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Brazil
Not, it was more like an investiture of power. But you are right his muse is not amused. Next chapter they fight and we get some insight about the gods.
But I think there is a misunderstanding, everything happening this chapter was in real space. Cid got bisected but still managed to stand up with difficulty using mana and his slime to create prothesis while Zagreus experienced the mother of all indigestion trying to feed on the part of Cid he cleaved off.
I mentioned Mitsugoshi, Alpha and her troop are still around. Cid has some experience with 'sharing his power'. He basically did the same with Zagreus as a counter.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
You know that's going to happen, Cid doesn't do regret.
Edit: Like there's not that many way to hurt Cid, death and defeat is fine so long as it's from a worthy opponent. I mean, you can probably get under his skin like here:
I don't see him getting angry from being bested, that would be pretty out of character. Though I'd be in complete character for him to get pissed off at the money being fake.
Last edited:
- Location
- Brazil
Honestly, this is a bar brawl that escalated to the ultimate consequences. As far as isekai protagonists go Cid is not a bad lad. No slavery, and he is not killing people like Momonga. Plus he is a god, while there is a pecking order and Cid is far from the top due to his portfolio, he still is a god. Zagreus own trauma is escalating things beyond reason too.
- Location
- Brazil
I appreciate you acknowledge that Cid is not being OOC.
- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
You know, I can totally see Cid using this opportunity to somehow become Mortal and try for Godhood again, but this time through his own merit.
This is still the same guy that actually drove his sister insane with his bullshit, just because he isn't the worst among Isekai protags doesn't mean he's any less shit.
Not to mention there are other isekai protags that are much nicer true their mostly in the slice of life category but they still count. Honestly it's easy to say someone's not to bad when you compare them to someone worse but that doesn't mean their not a shitty person. After all an amoral assassin comes off a lot better when compared to a sadistic cannibal serial killer but it still doesn't change the fact they're an amoral assassin it's simplifying things a lot yes but the point is still there.
- Location
- Brazil
I am not a LN reader so all I know about them is that she is really into his brother because she think she has a short lifespan due to demonic possession. Cid is mostly doing his own thing and she is the one dragging him around like a pet, something he resign himself to despite his power. Things get ugly next seasons?
- Location
- Brazil
I thought I had made it clear but again, not everybody is familiar with the game. The points where the mc progresses in his mythical path are scripted. In the battle for Drezen the mc chose for himself a single mythical path and as he advanced he can either progress it or dip into other paths.
There's also the fact that the mc's bit was very much a out of view side bit to Zagreus's fight. Also anyone else besides the mc?
- Location
- Brazil
I said this before but since there are twenty mortal ranks and in Pathfinder there are twenty levels, I am equating the two of them. As the party was supposed to reach level 11 by the end of Drezen they all ascended to the 2nd realm. Not only they but also some elite unities that focus on mass combat. The conqueror's path is a high-risk high-reward endeavor.
- Location
- washington
Does virtuous sons ever mention Aristophanes or Diogenes?
- Location
- Brazil
Only Diogenes, Aristotle once said Sol he met a man that could 'show him a king if showed a crown' and 'shitting in the agora'.
Cid's not so specail day
- Location
- Brazil
The Eye of the Hurricane I took from Khorramzadeh beats in the right side of my chest like a second heart, using my nervous system as its vascular system. It also behaves like one, even though if you were to carve my chest open it would not be seen by mortal senses even though it's almost blinding to my pneumatic senses.
Norgorber's power is completely unlike it. I could feel channels like circuits carving their way through my body as his power settled in. They were straight parallel and interconnecting lines not unlike an Integrated circuit. Yet despite the technological appearance, it was very much a divine curse in the sense it was alive. It lacked intelligence but more than it made up for it with Spirit. It assessed me as it did its work, making itself as comfortable in its new recipient as possible, which basically constituted following its donor's sense of style.
This is why I started to really worry when it flared in a veritable inferno when it met the flames of my virtuous spirit, my heart flame. I perceived its sense of approval as it used the newly burrowed channels to channel the power of my virtuous heart through my body unconcerned if it had to burn through the entire stock of nectar circulating in my blood to make it work without killing me. Dick!
I designed my Tyrant Raptor shikigami based on a fusion of animal anatomy and a fighter jet powered by thermonuclear technology, a field I studied on Earth and came to master in Numeria. As my familiars use my body information as a foundation to ensure they will keep up as I ascend, my own body was somewhat tempered for this sort of stress.
The problem is that life forms exist to keep on living, even weapons are just meant to extend their continuous existence. My Tyrant Raptor doesn't have the same sort of limitation, being more like a pseudo-biological machine. If a piece from a machine is too damaged it can always be fixed or replaced, no matter how badly, not unlike Theseus's ship. Humans are different, you can't simply rip its heart put it in ice then replace it with a new one a week later, and restart it as good as new. Even if you could, you risk losing its animus, leaving a soulless facsimile in its place.
That is why humans can't be atomic! A combat-oriented full-body cyborg with a brain cockpit? Sure, I even did the math. Raiden is totally viable, even if prohibitively expensive and a radiation hazard waiting to happen, but possible. But a living thing made of flesh and blood? Absurd!
For how long has my life been ruled by such absurdities anyway? It doesn't matter what I think is possible, I need to make it possible or I will explode! Heroes really have the most rotten luck.
So, I give up on fighting against the stolen majesty giving me an indigestion and focus on guiding the process. Burning heart blood buys me all the time I need even as it burns away my lifeline. All for the sake of manifesting this impossible childish delusion. Heroes refine themselves through trials, it's our lot in life to bear these back-breaking labors.
Fortunately, the body of a cultivator is far removed from the expected of a mortal man, a hero even more so. Socrates had survived losing more blood than most men could credibly carry, this led me to pursue the medical field at the Wan Shi Tong's Library, something I kept up in my tenure in Japan. The kinks and operation principles of RCT held particular interest to me due to the Wheel Turning's Life aspect.
Unfortunately, the power within me was far more taken with the idea of being atomic than worried with the specifics involved with making it a reality. It wouldn't be so goddamn pushy if I didn't know so much about the topic. In short, this power would be well suited for an idiotic savant and nobody else. Seriously, this is the last time I eat a god! I promise myself that.
Cultivation refines both soul and body, a human godly and titanic parts. It's how something as absurd as the Hunting Bird's breath technique where a cultivator hollows out his bones becomes viable; I wanted to wait for the Tyrant Realm due to the absolute authority over one's flesh but needs force my hand and necessity is the mother of invention.
I focus on adjusting my flesh within range of these magical circuits to guide the process. Even if I succeeded, I would have to find means to waste all that energy produced, that is why low-energy nuclear reactions from cold fusion are my only hope to retain a normal life after this. You know? Something impossible by modern science!
But not so much by Numerian super science.
It was a true hassle and even then, it was only viable to a cultivator of my standing due to my mystery faith focus on fortitude. I have been tempering myself with Bakkho's special brew… okay, I have a problem, and if Tsumiki and Megumi were around they would be kicking my ass for killing myself with this stuff but who the hell drinks to feel good?! Like the relief of sleep, the torpor of a good cup is like a small death and normal spirit wine doesn't cut it anymore.
Yet this was precisely what I needed to pull off this madness. A little bit of applicated quantic science by using the pneuma circulating through my new circuits to manipulate the position and velocity of atoms and photons through rhetoric and things fall into place. Then adjusting and ironed out some kinks so the circuits in the lungs capture the Deuterium needed for nuclear fusion from the water found in ambient humidity, some adjustments to the homeothermic constitution as a human-sized powerplant with my heart as its reactor core, and voila!
Hundreds of years' worth of time burned to purchase me the time needed to pull this project from paper to reality, even with the ken mind worth five hundred men put together and advantage of Archimedes' Golden Thread and my Parthenon of internalized truths serving as memory palace. But I succeeded!
I then picked up my sword and, in the time taken for me to walk the distance separating Norgorber from me, I had become atomic! The indigo heart flame burning behind my eyes compressed and brightened like the core of a star, flaring with my elevating spirit as I stared down the irreverent god.
Norgorber… no, has he ever called himself that or answered to such a name in the first place or is it a moniker given by others? I speak from experience when I say, shadows don't need names. The true name of a god holds meaning and power yet Norgorber doesn't trigger any reaction, yet it is said that any attempts to depict him incur in crams and tremors. He erased his entire mortal life from records and living memory.
"Hey, do you have a name?" I asked the stranger invading my empty, vacuous safe.
His smile widened and my heart sense flared like an alarm clock. It was as if the bastard had waited his entire life for someone to ask him that question.
"I am Shadow, one who lurks in the shadows to hunt the shadows! And you! Don't think I will forgive you easily for the crime that you have done. Where is all the treasure?" The hooded god says while brandishing his ooze sword centimeters from my face.
And honestly? Those were some fighting words! I could feel my starlight marrow burning, there is only one true lord of shadows and he has a name. I almost gloated back that there was never any gold in the first place but bite down my tongue at the last second. It seemed the wrong kind of thing to admit to the god of extorsion and blackmail, Norgorber's Reaper of Reputation aspect.
"Who knows? It is gold laundry day so I imagine they are being polished or something. Not that I would simply tell you anyway." I say while manifesting my raven mantle and had the displeasure to know Norgorber's power touched it as well with his 'unique' sense of style.
"Then I just have to make you speak by force!" Shadow says while advancing.
There are 31.556.926 seconds in a year, and considering the stakes I might not have a life to use them if I don't take this fight seriously; use it or lose it, simple as that, burning away a year of my theoretical life span to purchase a single more second. My new circuits flared and cooked me from the inside out like a more intense version of what Master Jeong Jeong had taught me all those years ago. Through the burning flame of my virtuous spirit compounded by Shadow's magical circuits multiplies the returning price paid for my heart blood in exponents rather than multipliers.
It was like I had strapped jet engines in mortal's limbs, I moved like I had no mortal limits but only the mending power of my dharma star wheel pneumatic chambers kept me from blowing from the inside out.
For his part, Shadow made clear his intent to even out our scores by cleaving me in two. Shadow was supposed to be the god of poisons but from what I had seen his area of expertise seemed to be radiation sickness, as his power flared in purple witch light. The curse of my Promised Death is augmented by nectar's bolstering properties. He simply couldn't excise it while fighting me so he decided to solve this dilemma through overwhelming aggression.
We were like streaks of light clashing with each other, neither of us was using magical means to fly and yet it was like our heels had wings. In this closed-off and reinforced pit, we used the walls as leverage to propel ourselves at each other. A furious exchange of blows followed as we ascended vertically up and down our arena leaving two streams of straight and jagged neon light trails from the ionized air caused by our quick movement.
He was the greater between the two of us, but I already expected that, and heroes aren't called defiant souls for nothing. Refinance against greater imposition was our creed and the guidance from heaven in my years more than made up for the difference. The silver varnish coloring my pneuma gave away Argyrchiara's guidance as she elevated my swordsmanship beyond what is possible as dictated by the Law of Diminishment of the World.
That is why I noticed how alike our methodology to combat is. I rejected all forms of glamour and esotericism from 'exotic millenary martial arts' as such discipline invariable put the cart in front of the horses, placing aesthetic over functionality. No, violence is humanity's most ancient and profound form of self-expression and I made a point to master it like any other artform. Like dancing, it requires a spark, inspiration, for one to truly be considered an artist. It isn't enough that your form be precise and your approach optimal, any machine can do that. A person needs an incorrigible creativity that blooms like a flower even during the greatest of adversities.
Especially during the greatest of adversities.
Shadow, or whoever this guy really was, had it. That I can say with authority. Despite the curse of death eating away at his power, his mutilation slowing him down, and my ruthless assault aiming to tear him down, he shined like a polished diamond. He shaved away everything deemed unnecessary, not only from his fighting form but from his mindset as well. Irrelevant, useless things that comprise the brunt of lived experience. It is as if he had already forgotten what it was like to be human since before he had even ascended.
He used his ooze suit as a prosthesis, giving him insane maneuverability and range as his fake arm attacked like a furious whip moving in a way impossible for a human and his leg swung his body erratically as he spins through the air. It was only the magic-biting properties inherited from the magical crocodile that allowed Promised Death to counter it by disturbing Shadow's control over the slime as we trade blows. Coupled with the curse of death still eating at him I managed to hold my head above water for now.
If he was human this battle would have been a wrap. For me that is. The sharp senses and insight of a hero make clear Shadow pursued a very specific kind of strength. It had less to do with power for power's sake and more to do with aesthetic, something I can respect. But human nature is not that flexible, we are ancient beasts carrying a lot of baggage from birth. Men pursue virtue so they align themselves with heaven yet the main struggle with its cultivation is the commitment, the tension pushing away from the path chosen to climb Olympus Mounds.
Tribulations are the most important part. To advance despite adversity is what makes the climb meaningful. Everyone can signal how virtuous they are for the four winds but few can embody it in every action, every waking moment, in all things - performative excellence.
That is why someone who has taken every advantage and shortcut imaginable, casting away any undue burden over his shoulder without looking back, will certainly advance quickly but it will be the one carrying the weight of heaven on their shoulders that will have the fortitude to persevere when the climb gets truly steep.
A hero is someone who carries everything that he sees. For the sake of those that came before and those that will come after. Griffon's standards might seem absurd to the point of being childish, forgetting heroes are not fairy tales but real people of flesh and blood, yet as someone who walks that path myself, I see the logic in it.
That is why I know in my heart of hearts I could have beaten Shadow if he was just a powerful human.
Gods are different though. they are unfettered from this struggle as they have already reached the top. A god gets stronger the more like a god he behaves. In that case, I wonder if there is driving will behind the Starstone Trial, because Cid breathes and lives his appointed hole as the god of rogues. As if he was made for it instead of born. It doesn't feel like a coincidence he was the first person to pass the trial after two thousand years and prove it was legit.
Herakles might have defeated some non-name river god and clashed with Ares but Norgorber is one of the core twenty deities. No battle where a god fails to achieve total dominance over a mortal can be called anything other than a disaster – that is how gods often die – but it isn't exactly going in my favor either.
I have to move this battle out of Drezen!
Shadow had no such concern, he jubilates in ecstasy by dancing on the edge of the blade with his life at stake. He was having the time of his life, the monotonous face he held while browsing through my streets nowhere to be seen as the visible part of his face held a savage and unhinged smile. One of his four aspects, Father Skinsaw – patron of bandits, latrocidas, reavers, and mass murderers, is being displayed at full throttle.
He certainly lives up to the name, He has been bloodletting me from head to toe. Injuries delivered from a god turned out to be really persistent, who would have guessed? Fortunately, the process of biding one's soul to multiply and ordering it confers insight about its true shape like nothing else. I know the shape of my soul like the back of my hand, healing what cannot be mended is also within the reach of a hero.
Even Shadow's Blackfinger aspect, his dominion over poisons, is within my power to overcome. I subject myself to nectar-fueled super alcohol poison for recreational purposes, his brew is nothing to me but a pleasant raze.
Plus, I was giving back just as much as I was getting. Promised death cleaved through his ooze suit to bite Godflesh with gusto, even without channeling mythical power. Its curse of death is reinforced with every nick I deliver in retribution for a would-be killing blow I endure that should by all right bleed me to death or puncture a vital organ if I were an ordinary man. While I could remediate it by fully manifesting the Iron God armor, Shadow is too fast for me to compromise my speed if I wanted to keep up with him. And so we danced in a frenetic exchange of blows.
"Fortitude." The memory I had carved in my soul and bones at the beginning of my endless travel, delivered by the only higher power I had ever willingly appealed to from my own volition. "Courage, always. Courage then, courage now, and courage every day thereafter."
The experience had been like staring at the sun in its true naked intensity, "When all the stars have fallen from the sky, when every father has been buried by their daughter, and every son has returned to their mother—fortitude is the virtue of that which remains. Fortitude is that which endures, even when the world is bleak and cold.
"I am that which endures," he clarified, and despite the even tone of voice in which he had delivered those words to me, they were so real everything else I had ever heard before that point sounded like a lie.
"I am courage in the face of future tragedy. I am the timeless acknowledgement of life's cruelty and the enjoyment of it in spite. I am fortitude. I am a promise." No soul was deaf enough to miss it and through it I had awakened to my place in the world. The experience had almost unmade me, with every word, the heat burned more unbearably and the light grew ever brighter. Baring the virtue of his soul had been more than enough than my mortal frame could handle. "That no matter how many times I fall, I will rise again tomorrow."
"As if I would lose to an edge try-hard like you!"
Norgorber ascended in 1893 of the Absalom Reckoning calendar when the god Aroden lifted the Starstone from the depths of the Inner Sea and founded the city of Absalom, starting the Age of Enthronement. We are in 4718 AR, Norgorber can no longer be called a young god anymore. Humans are creatures of habit and as former humans the ascended gods are more prone to this sin than most.
"Everything rots in the end. You aren't that much older than Aroden yourself, old timer." I gloat to Shadow as he regains his bearing, the truth is that we both could use a breather right now. Despite how far I had come I still used more in the last ten minutes than what Deskari had forced out of me in our entire fight. There goes my stock of heart blood for the war effort down the drain. "Past the peak of their fleeting existence, it is the elder's nature to stagnate and grow old. The opposite holds just as true. On the way to the peak of their potential, change is the providence of young blood. Inevitably, stagnation gives way to the storm." I say and the sound of distant thunder starts to rumble.
In the hellish landscape of the Worldwound with its battered lands scarred by bottomless fissures, blood-red skies, and mutated flora and fauna, the self-apocryphed god starts to laugh like a madman.
The sight was… unnerving. There was something very unsettling about the Shadow. Not exactly because it was scary though it was, but more to do with the fact he wasn't even bothering to deny my accusation.
"Maybe I am really getting rust after all, letting a rookie get the better of me not once but twice!" He confesses in good sheer, seemly unbothered by this reality. His actions somehow just made things scarier, I would prefer if he was throwing a fit at the audacity of a mortal daring to harm a god. "To think when I had your age, I arrogantly thought the path toward omnipotence was limitless too. Yet eventually I was once more forced to confront the reality that no matter what world we inhabit even the gods have limits and that even among them there is a pecking order.
"Once talent and commitment are filtered out and no longer a factor in the race for supremacy, the deciding factor becomes time! Those who started in the race early will always hold an advantage over those who started late, who were born later!"
"So, did you give up on the top then?" I ask in derision but couldn't hide my discomfort, Griffon and Selene once complained about the same thing. To aggravate things Shadow just smiled and then vanished as if he was never there, a unique quirk of his divine majesty was the feeling he was always speaking from behind you even as you stared at him, like a wraith, disorienting when you were being jumped.
"Of course not," Shadow gloated to my ear and I hate to admit how shilling it was, yet his backstabbing attempt was foiled by my Falling Blossom Emotion, parring his attack with a blade of pure pneuma; and the fact I was using something meant to defend against a domain sure hit doesn't wasn't lost to me. "I will never give up on my dream and life's mission even if I have to contest against the whole world with the other gods biting at my heels! I thank you for shocking me out of my funk! An Eminence is Shadow should be stronger than anyone and you reminded me trample over your supposed betters is always an option!"
To drive the point home shadow redoubled his efforts to murderize me for good with great enthusiasm assuming a more frenetic and erratic fighting style, taking more risks in exchange for unpredictability, recalibrating his approach due to the shock of my last blow. "That was the second time. Nobody ever got the drop on me twice and live, but I guarantee, there won't be a third."
For my part only the power amp of the black flash prevented me from getting beheaded, alas I would have to make Shadow eat his own words soon. I didn't change the battlefield just out of a sense of responsibility, there is nothing this deep in the Worldwound that I care to preserve.
I manifest my hands of carrion intent, my ten original ones making the mudras to manifest my Mandala intent, and the other million to assault shadow from all directions, granting me enough breathing room to free my hands of flesh and blood to make a single mudra.
"Domain Expansion: Monochrome Crucible!"
The world was overtaken by a gray filter draining all colors as if someone had installed a noir filter on reality. Despite being my trump card, this is a move I seldom got the chance to use as of late due to circumstances yet it is still as devastating as I remember just for the fact it scales up with me.
At my current standing, it stretches for miles and due to the poison of death, Shadow is especially vulnerable to all necrotic effects. A deadly combo that saps his strength and vitality while emboldening and boosting me.
The effect was instantaneous, it was as if he had been chained by stone weights. By the time he cut through my manifested intent to reach me our first exchange of blows was a stalemate, a humiliating position for a god to find himself at.
I wasn't done though.
The Eye of the Hurricane beat inside my chest at full throttle, it seems that reaching the limits of my mythical power unlocked something. A height that even Khorramzadeh had never reached. Better yet, it somehow resonated with my own Greek foundation.
"Behold," I boasted as lightning danced in my eyes and this time it was Shadow that was frightened. "Raging Heaven."
The blue lightning bolts were a stark and bold phenomenon inside my grayed-out world. How many times did I get smite by tribulation lightning for my transgression against the Fates? Enough for me to understand its nature. Raging Heaven did not care for one's standing, it only cared to tear you apart, unmaking a man and toppling his Ego, block by block. It existed to unmake the great and cast out the proud, it struck in hunger and scorn.
It existed as an eternal reminder every man was equally worthless under Heaven.
The Storm that Never Ceased encumbered all mundane and supernatural senses, being worse the higher one's standing in; it reaches the point most tyrants, save one, can't stand to even look at it. Something Shadow discovered the worst way possible as he lost track of me as I disengaged behind a curtain of thick fog, bone chilly rain, flaying wind, and deafening thunder.
It also hungers, manifesting voracious and fearless lighting hounds that exchanged flesh and blood for the storm. Also something Shadow discovered for himself as he was assaulted from all sides by sentient and hateful lightning bolts.
The tribulation lightning is both merciless and tenacious, being conducted by pneuma, ensuring an inescapable backlash to any virtuous technique that dares to pitch itself against it. Another thing Shadow saw for himself at first hand as he grunted in pain, paying in blood for each tribulation hound that he killed even as he desperately dodged bolts raining from on high.
To be honest, part of me would be happy if he fled by now. It was something one would expect The Grayman, patron of rogues, thieves, and infiltrators to do. Sure, I would have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my stay in Golarion but at least this would mean he would use minions to carry his revenge. Shadow was clearly trying to track me down instead. This battle had become a matter of pride for him, he would not retreat. So be it.
I bring my hands together once more to manifest my shikigami shadow beast totality. But this time I wasn't going to summon my four heavenly generals. No, this was more akin to a maximum technique that fused the ten shikigami together into a single grotesque mass of protean churning black goo as many pieces of the beast kept emerging and sinking from the malformed and semisolid shadow.
On its own, it was pretty useless but things started to get interesting once it started manifesting the dragon tooth warriors. They emerged from it like a carapace, forming a living outer shell. They were fused to each other in a macabre marriage of flesh like a human chimera and despite the impractical appearance they were strong beyond logic – the fusion of Roman and Greek methodologies. A warrior with the strength of a thousand men under a single skin and a thousand men fighting as one. A horror crawling from primeval nightmares weighting unending power and terrible enough to behold to instill madness.
Hekatoncheire.
I had eaten enough mythical demons for some power to suffuse my shikigami without any exertion on my part and now all that power was concentrated on a single entity and the giant did not hesitate to put it to good use. The Hekatoncheire fell on Cid like a skyscraper of swords, spewing a volley of arrows and spears great enough to cloud the skies, its war cry shocked the heaven and filled the mind to the point of bursting, and its steeps quaked the earth.
Despite its colossal size, it moves at uncanny speed, a wall of brandished blades striking at everything in reach. Shadow tried to destroy it by launching itself at it like a comet and was summarily rebutted for his trouble, getting attacked by more blades than even he could handle. He is no quitter though, so he kept on trying, flying as a purple bean over its giant body. Shadow managed to deliver a few good blows but the teeming flesh of the Hekatoncheires replaced itself at a faster rate than re could wound him, getting progressively stronger as he rampaged just as the god was getting weaker and slowing down by his mounting injuries.
The balance had finally turned in my favor.
From beyond Shadow's range of perception, I shifted Promised Death into a bow and procured a starlight arrow from my virtuous heart. By sacrificing my own pound of flesh, I instilled my animus into it, as if it was one of my ravens, then let it fly. Argyrchiara opened a silver portal to transport it to Shadow's blind spot.
The umbral god managed to sense it in the last second yet the starlight arrow danced through the air as if it had wings and still managed to graze Shadow in the side before running head first in another silver gate to attack Shadow once more, but this time it was accompanied by two more raven arrows that then became eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight until Shadow was caged inside a flying unkindness of starlight.
I was firing like a machine gun, and despite their encumbrance, the raven arrows deftly avoided the Hekatoncheires thanks to the strategic use of portals, the guidance of the Golden Thread, and their deft maneuverability. This was a checkmate. Between my crippling opening strike, the curse of promised death, the leeching effect of my domain, the disorienting power of my storm, and my overwhelming assault, my victory is assured-
Well, I had one of those kinds of moves of my own. It almost killed me the first and last time I used it, but my battle with the Storm Lord gave me an idea about how to use it. I hardened my raven midnight mantle with the essence of the Iron God, reverted Promised Death to a sword once more, and closed the distance separating shadow and me using a silver portal.
Next chapter Zagreus is in the airport glazing Cid that he wasn't even really trying all along! Thanks for your support and patronage but this is the end of this story.
Okay, I jest. This would be a good place for a cliffhanger and originally intended to end it here but since this is pretty much the end of this fight, I decided to might as well wrap it up with a nice bow.
Enjoy.
Not yet, that is. That is why I prepared contingencies as soon as I verified his identity. As it turned out Heaven hold a dim view on quitters, the angels Panaka saved didn't get the warmest of welcome after escaping the Ward Stone. Something a powerful planetar angel called Ablon in the loyal faction had anticipated and while Deskari's corruption could not sway her away from his tenure my heroic display did.
I had found myself a fan. She willingly departed with the other angels and persuaded some among them to return to the material plane to follow me. Self-appoint herself as my conscience, becoming the annoying angel on my shoulder. I guess from her point of view this was akin to an early investment in a great stock that would bomb in the future. And as I used all my remaining strength to look around, I could not deny this angel investor of mine turned out to be something of a big shot upstairs, having enough clout to open some doors.
Shadow was in deep shit! His victory high must have been really short-lived. Abadar, the god of civilization could be easily identified by his Gilgamesh impression. The First Vaunt, said to house perfect copies of everything that has ever existed, something he used as projectiles to turn Shadow in a pincushion. No surprise he would answer the call – Norgorber's thievery is an aversion to the laws that society relies on that undermine honest gained wealth.
What was surprising was that he wasn't alone; it seems even gods are not above peer pressure. Iomedae's presence was unsurprising, she wasn't shy to manifest her beliefs Shadow had evaded justice too long and suspected his involvement in the death of Aroden. Sarenrae was more surprising, I guess even the redeeming godess got burned by Shadow a few too many times. Both Torag and Erastil sees the activities Norgorber promote as a cancer threatening the communities and cities under their stewardship.
The straw that broke the camel's back is the fact gods are not supposed to interfere in the material plane directly unless through extenuating circumstances. A gentleman's agreement Shadow had flaunted too many times. Sure, I was the one that picked this fight but who would give the god of thieves the privilege of reasonable doubt at this point? The fact he was trying to murder their silver bullet for the Worldwound problem was damning. The only reason they hadn't stepped directly is due to the risk of an all-out war with the Abyss.
What they can do is enforce this law against a loner god after he got weakened by a lesser existence. Who among the twenty will dare to step up in favor of one when five stand against him? Shadow has a lot of peers more than capable of antagonizing him by themselves only looking for an excuse to pick a fight.
While I am not a fan of appealing to higher power, there is such a thing as reading the room. Besides how cool was it that I goaded almost all greater gods of good and order into jumping the god of fighting dirty?! Ha, and here comes Heaven's answer. How typical.
Norgorber's power is completely unlike it. I could feel channels like circuits carving their way through my body as his power settled in. They were straight parallel and interconnecting lines not unlike an Integrated circuit. Yet despite the technological appearance, it was very much a divine curse in the sense it was alive. It lacked intelligence but more than it made up for it with Spirit. It assessed me as it did its work, making itself as comfortable in its new recipient as possible, which basically constituted following its donor's sense of style.
This is why I started to really worry when it flared in a veritable inferno when it met the flames of my virtuous spirit, my heart flame. I perceived its sense of approval as it used the newly burrowed channels to channel the power of my virtuous heart through my body unconcerned if it had to burn through the entire stock of nectar circulating in my blood to make it work without killing me. Dick!
I designed my Tyrant Raptor shikigami based on a fusion of animal anatomy and a fighter jet powered by thermonuclear technology, a field I studied on Earth and came to master in Numeria. As my familiars use my body information as a foundation to ensure they will keep up as I ascend, my own body was somewhat tempered for this sort of stress.
The problem is that life forms exist to keep on living, even weapons are just meant to extend their continuous existence. My Tyrant Raptor doesn't have the same sort of limitation, being more like a pseudo-biological machine. If a piece from a machine is too damaged it can always be fixed or replaced, no matter how badly, not unlike Theseus's ship. Humans are different, you can't simply rip its heart put it in ice then replace it with a new one a week later, and restart it as good as new. Even if you could, you risk losing its animus, leaving a soulless facsimile in its place.
That is why humans can't be atomic! A combat-oriented full-body cyborg with a brain cockpit? Sure, I even did the math. Raiden is totally viable, even if prohibitively expensive and a radiation hazard waiting to happen, but possible. But a living thing made of flesh and blood? Absurd!
For how long has my life been ruled by such absurdities anyway? It doesn't matter what I think is possible, I need to make it possible or I will explode! Heroes really have the most rotten luck.
So, I give up on fighting against the stolen majesty giving me an indigestion and focus on guiding the process. Burning heart blood buys me all the time I need even as it burns away my lifeline. All for the sake of manifesting this impossible childish delusion. Heroes refine themselves through trials, it's our lot in life to bear these back-breaking labors.
Fortunately, the body of a cultivator is far removed from the expected of a mortal man, a hero even more so. Socrates had survived losing more blood than most men could credibly carry, this led me to pursue the medical field at the Wan Shi Tong's Library, something I kept up in my tenure in Japan. The kinks and operation principles of RCT held particular interest to me due to the Wheel Turning's Life aspect.
Unfortunately, the power within me was far more taken with the idea of being atomic than worried with the specifics involved with making it a reality. It wouldn't be so goddamn pushy if I didn't know so much about the topic. In short, this power would be well suited for an idiotic savant and nobody else. Seriously, this is the last time I eat a god! I promise myself that.
Cultivation refines both soul and body, a human godly and titanic parts. It's how something as absurd as the Hunting Bird's breath technique where a cultivator hollows out his bones becomes viable; I wanted to wait for the Tyrant Realm due to the absolute authority over one's flesh but needs force my hand and necessity is the mother of invention.
I focus on adjusting my flesh within range of these magical circuits to guide the process. Even if I succeeded, I would have to find means to waste all that energy produced, that is why low-energy nuclear reactions from cold fusion are my only hope to retain a normal life after this. You know? Something impossible by modern science!
But not so much by Numerian super science.
It was a true hassle and even then, it was only viable to a cultivator of my standing due to my mystery faith focus on fortitude. I have been tempering myself with Bakkho's special brew… okay, I have a problem, and if Tsumiki and Megumi were around they would be kicking my ass for killing myself with this stuff but who the hell drinks to feel good?! Like the relief of sleep, the torpor of a good cup is like a small death and normal spirit wine doesn't cut it anymore.
Yet this was precisely what I needed to pull off this madness. A little bit of applicated quantic science by using the pneuma circulating through my new circuits to manipulate the position and velocity of atoms and photons through rhetoric and things fall into place. Then adjusting and ironed out some kinks so the circuits in the lungs capture the Deuterium needed for nuclear fusion from the water found in ambient humidity, some adjustments to the homeothermic constitution as a human-sized powerplant with my heart as its reactor core, and voila!
Hundreds of years' worth of time burned to purchase me the time needed to pull this project from paper to reality, even with the ken mind worth five hundred men put together and advantage of Archimedes' Golden Thread and my Parthenon of internalized truths serving as memory palace. But I succeeded!
I then picked up my sword and, in the time taken for me to walk the distance separating Norgorber from me, I had become atomic! The indigo heart flame burning behind my eyes compressed and brightened like the core of a star, flaring with my elevating spirit as I stared down the irreverent god.
Norgorber… no, has he ever called himself that or answered to such a name in the first place or is it a moniker given by others? I speak from experience when I say, shadows don't need names. The true name of a god holds meaning and power yet Norgorber doesn't trigger any reaction, yet it is said that any attempts to depict him incur in crams and tremors. He erased his entire mortal life from records and living memory.
"Hey, do you have a name?" I asked the stranger invading my empty, vacuous safe.
His smile widened and my heart sense flared like an alarm clock. It was as if the bastard had waited his entire life for someone to ask him that question.
"I am Shadow, one who lurks in the shadows to hunt the shadows! And you! Don't think I will forgive you easily for the crime that you have done. Where is all the treasure?" The hooded god says while brandishing his ooze sword centimeters from my face.
And honestly? Those were some fighting words! I could feel my starlight marrow burning, there is only one true lord of shadows and he has a name. I almost gloated back that there was never any gold in the first place but bite down my tongue at the last second. It seemed the wrong kind of thing to admit to the god of extorsion and blackmail, Norgorber's Reaper of Reputation aspect.
"Who knows? It is gold laundry day so I imagine they are being polished or something. Not that I would simply tell you anyway." I say while manifesting my raven mantle and had the displeasure to know Norgorber's power touched it as well with his 'unique' sense of style.
"Then I just have to make you speak by force!" Shadow says while advancing.
There are 31.556.926 seconds in a year, and considering the stakes I might not have a life to use them if I don't take this fight seriously; use it or lose it, simple as that, burning away a year of my theoretical life span to purchase a single more second. My new circuits flared and cooked me from the inside out like a more intense version of what Master Jeong Jeong had taught me all those years ago. Through the burning flame of my virtuous spirit compounded by Shadow's magical circuits multiplies the returning price paid for my heart blood in exponents rather than multipliers.
It was like I had strapped jet engines in mortal's limbs, I moved like I had no mortal limits but only the mending power of my dharma star wheel pneumatic chambers kept me from blowing from the inside out.
For his part, Shadow made clear his intent to even out our scores by cleaving me in two. Shadow was supposed to be the god of poisons but from what I had seen his area of expertise seemed to be radiation sickness, as his power flared in purple witch light. The curse of my Promised Death is augmented by nectar's bolstering properties. He simply couldn't excise it while fighting me so he decided to solve this dilemma through overwhelming aggression.
We were like streaks of light clashing with each other, neither of us was using magical means to fly and yet it was like our heels had wings. In this closed-off and reinforced pit, we used the walls as leverage to propel ourselves at each other. A furious exchange of blows followed as we ascended vertically up and down our arena leaving two streams of straight and jagged neon light trails from the ionized air caused by our quick movement.
He was the greater between the two of us, but I already expected that, and heroes aren't called defiant souls for nothing. Refinance against greater imposition was our creed and the guidance from heaven in my years more than made up for the difference. The silver varnish coloring my pneuma gave away Argyrchiara's guidance as she elevated my swordsmanship beyond what is possible as dictated by the Law of Diminishment of the World.
That is why I noticed how alike our methodology to combat is. I rejected all forms of glamour and esotericism from 'exotic millenary martial arts' as such discipline invariable put the cart in front of the horses, placing aesthetic over functionality. No, violence is humanity's most ancient and profound form of self-expression and I made a point to master it like any other artform. Like dancing, it requires a spark, inspiration, for one to truly be considered an artist. It isn't enough that your form be precise and your approach optimal, any machine can do that. A person needs an incorrigible creativity that blooms like a flower even during the greatest of adversities.
Especially during the greatest of adversities.
Shadow, or whoever this guy really was, had it. That I can say with authority. Despite the curse of death eating away at his power, his mutilation slowing him down, and my ruthless assault aiming to tear him down, he shined like a polished diamond. He shaved away everything deemed unnecessary, not only from his fighting form but from his mindset as well. Irrelevant, useless things that comprise the brunt of lived experience. It is as if he had already forgotten what it was like to be human since before he had even ascended.
He used his ooze suit as a prosthesis, giving him insane maneuverability and range as his fake arm attacked like a furious whip moving in a way impossible for a human and his leg swung his body erratically as he spins through the air. It was only the magic-biting properties inherited from the magical crocodile that allowed Promised Death to counter it by disturbing Shadow's control over the slime as we trade blows. Coupled with the curse of death still eating at him I managed to hold my head above water for now.
If he was human this battle would have been a wrap. For me that is. The sharp senses and insight of a hero make clear Shadow pursued a very specific kind of strength. It had less to do with power for power's sake and more to do with aesthetic, something I can respect. But human nature is not that flexible, we are ancient beasts carrying a lot of baggage from birth. Men pursue virtue so they align themselves with heaven yet the main struggle with its cultivation is the commitment, the tension pushing away from the path chosen to climb Olympus Mounds.
Tribulations are the most important part. To advance despite adversity is what makes the climb meaningful. Everyone can signal how virtuous they are for the four winds but few can embody it in every action, every waking moment, in all things - performative excellence.
That is why someone who has taken every advantage and shortcut imaginable, casting away any undue burden over his shoulder without looking back, will certainly advance quickly but it will be the one carrying the weight of heaven on their shoulders that will have the fortitude to persevere when the climb gets truly steep.
A hero is someone who carries everything that he sees. For the sake of those that came before and those that will come after. Griffon's standards might seem absurd to the point of being childish, forgetting heroes are not fairy tales but real people of flesh and blood, yet as someone who walks that path myself, I see the logic in it.
That is why I know in my heart of hearts I could have beaten Shadow if he was just a powerful human.
Gods are different though. they are unfettered from this struggle as they have already reached the top. A god gets stronger the more like a god he behaves. In that case, I wonder if there is driving will behind the Starstone Trial, because Cid breathes and lives his appointed hole as the god of rogues. As if he was made for it instead of born. It doesn't feel like a coincidence he was the first person to pass the trial after two thousand years and prove it was legit.
Herakles might have defeated some non-name river god and clashed with Ares but Norgorber is one of the core twenty deities. No battle where a god fails to achieve total dominance over a mortal can be called anything other than a disaster – that is how gods often die – but it isn't exactly going in my favor either.
I have to move this battle out of Drezen!
Shadow had no such concern, he jubilates in ecstasy by dancing on the edge of the blade with his life at stake. He was having the time of his life, the monotonous face he held while browsing through my streets nowhere to be seen as the visible part of his face held a savage and unhinged smile. One of his four aspects, Father Skinsaw – patron of bandits, latrocidas, reavers, and mass murderers, is being displayed at full throttle.
He certainly lives up to the name, He has been bloodletting me from head to toe. Injuries delivered from a god turned out to be really persistent, who would have guessed? Fortunately, the process of biding one's soul to multiply and ordering it confers insight about its true shape like nothing else. I know the shape of my soul like the back of my hand, healing what cannot be mended is also within the reach of a hero.
Even Shadow's Blackfinger aspect, his dominion over poisons, is within my power to overcome. I subject myself to nectar-fueled super alcohol poison for recreational purposes, his brew is nothing to me but a pleasant raze.
Plus, I was giving back just as much as I was getting. Promised death cleaved through his ooze suit to bite Godflesh with gusto, even without channeling mythical power. Its curse of death is reinforced with every nick I deliver in retribution for a would-be killing blow I endure that should by all right bleed me to death or puncture a vital organ if I were an ordinary man. While I could remediate it by fully manifesting the Iron God armor, Shadow is too fast for me to compromise my speed if I wanted to keep up with him. And so we danced in a frenetic exchange of blows.
"Fortitude." The memory I had carved in my soul and bones at the beginning of my endless travel, delivered by the only higher power I had ever willingly appealed to from my own volition. "Courage, always. Courage then, courage now, and courage every day thereafter."
The experience had been like staring at the sun in its true naked intensity, "When all the stars have fallen from the sky, when every father has been buried by their daughter, and every son has returned to their mother—fortitude is the virtue of that which remains. Fortitude is that which endures, even when the world is bleak and cold.
"I am that which endures," he clarified, and despite the even tone of voice in which he had delivered those words to me, they were so real everything else I had ever heard before that point sounded like a lie.
"I am courage in the face of future tragedy. I am the timeless acknowledgement of life's cruelty and the enjoyment of it in spite. I am fortitude. I am a promise." No soul was deaf enough to miss it and through it I had awakened to my place in the world. The experience had almost unmade me, with every word, the heat burned more unbearably and the light grew ever brighter. Baring the virtue of his soul had been more than enough than my mortal frame could handle. "That no matter how many times I fall, I will rise again tomorrow."
"As if I would lose to an edge try-hard like you!"
As if I would lose to an edge try-hard like you!
I declared to the heavens while punching Shadow in the face with a spontaneous black flash manifested from my heightened emotions, stunning Cid enough for Argyrchiara to seize the fabric of space-time through the power of the Vortex Dragon to sequester both of us through a silver portal away from Drezen and deep into the Wolrdwound.
-//-
A popular definition of insanity is doing things again and again while expecting different results. Fortunately for me, any true member of the Orphic House has a Ph.D. when the subject is madness. In the wire trap Cid called a mind something as chaotic and unpredictable as the black flash phenomenon had no place in his calculations.
Norgorber ascended in 1893 of the Absalom Reckoning calendar when the god Aroden lifted the Starstone from the depths of the Inner Sea and founded the city of Absalom, starting the Age of Enthronement. We are in 4718 AR, Norgorber can no longer be called a young god anymore. Humans are creatures of habit and as former humans the ascended gods are more prone to this sin than most.
"Everything rots in the end. You aren't that much older than Aroden yourself, old timer." I gloat to Shadow as he regains his bearing, the truth is that we both could use a breather right now. Despite how far I had come I still used more in the last ten minutes than what Deskari had forced out of me in our entire fight. There goes my stock of heart blood for the war effort down the drain. "Past the peak of their fleeting existence, it is the elder's nature to stagnate and grow old. The opposite holds just as true. On the way to the peak of their potential, change is the providence of young blood. Inevitably, stagnation gives way to the storm." I say and the sound of distant thunder starts to rumble.
In the hellish landscape of the Worldwound with its battered lands scarred by bottomless fissures, blood-red skies, and mutated flora and fauna, the self-apocryphed god starts to laugh like a madman.
The sight was… unnerving. There was something very unsettling about the Shadow. Not exactly because it was scary though it was, but more to do with the fact he wasn't even bothering to deny my accusation.
"Maybe I am really getting rust after all, letting a rookie get the better of me not once but twice!" He confesses in good sheer, seemly unbothered by this reality. His actions somehow just made things scarier, I would prefer if he was throwing a fit at the audacity of a mortal daring to harm a god. "To think when I had your age, I arrogantly thought the path toward omnipotence was limitless too. Yet eventually I was once more forced to confront the reality that no matter what world we inhabit even the gods have limits and that even among them there is a pecking order.
"Once talent and commitment are filtered out and no longer a factor in the race for supremacy, the deciding factor becomes time! Those who started in the race early will always hold an advantage over those who started late, who were born later!"
"So, did you give up on the top then?" I ask in derision but couldn't hide my discomfort, Griffon and Selene once complained about the same thing. To aggravate things Shadow just smiled and then vanished as if he was never there, a unique quirk of his divine majesty was the feeling he was always speaking from behind you even as you stared at him, like a wraith, disorienting when you were being jumped.
"Of course not," Shadow gloated to my ear and I hate to admit how shilling it was, yet his backstabbing attempt was foiled by my Falling Blossom Emotion, parring his attack with a blade of pure pneuma; and the fact I was using something meant to defend against a domain sure hit doesn't wasn't lost to me. "I will never give up on my dream and life's mission even if I have to contest against the whole world with the other gods biting at my heels! I thank you for shocking me out of my funk! An Eminence is Shadow should be stronger than anyone and you reminded me trample over your supposed betters is always an option!"
To drive the point home shadow redoubled his efforts to murderize me for good with great enthusiasm assuming a more frenetic and erratic fighting style, taking more risks in exchange for unpredictability, recalibrating his approach due to the shock of my last blow. "That was the second time. Nobody ever got the drop on me twice and live, but I guarantee, there won't be a third."
For my part only the power amp of the black flash prevented me from getting beheaded, alas I would have to make Shadow eat his own words soon. I didn't change the battlefield just out of a sense of responsibility, there is nothing this deep in the Worldwound that I care to preserve.
I manifest my hands of carrion intent, my ten original ones making the mudras to manifest my Mandala intent, and the other million to assault shadow from all directions, granting me enough breathing room to free my hands of flesh and blood to make a single mudra.
"Domain Expansion: Monochrome Crucible!"
The world was overtaken by a gray filter draining all colors as if someone had installed a noir filter on reality. Despite being my trump card, this is a move I seldom got the chance to use as of late due to circumstances yet it is still as devastating as I remember just for the fact it scales up with me.
At my current standing, it stretches for miles and due to the poison of death, Shadow is especially vulnerable to all necrotic effects. A deadly combo that saps his strength and vitality while emboldening and boosting me.
The effect was instantaneous, it was as if he had been chained by stone weights. By the time he cut through my manifested intent to reach me our first exchange of blows was a stalemate, a humiliating position for a god to find himself at.
I wasn't done though.
The Eye of the Hurricane beat inside my chest at full throttle, it seems that reaching the limits of my mythical power unlocked something. A height that even Khorramzadeh had never reached. Better yet, it somehow resonated with my own Greek foundation.
"Behold," I boasted as lightning danced in my eyes and this time it was Shadow that was frightened. "Raging Heaven."
The blue lightning bolts were a stark and bold phenomenon inside my grayed-out world. How many times did I get smite by tribulation lightning for my transgression against the Fates? Enough for me to understand its nature. Raging Heaven did not care for one's standing, it only cared to tear you apart, unmaking a man and toppling his Ego, block by block. It existed to unmake the great and cast out the proud, it struck in hunger and scorn.
It existed as an eternal reminder every man was equally worthless under Heaven.
The Storm that Never Ceased encumbered all mundane and supernatural senses, being worse the higher one's standing in; it reaches the point most tyrants, save one, can't stand to even look at it. Something Shadow discovered the worst way possible as he lost track of me as I disengaged behind a curtain of thick fog, bone chilly rain, flaying wind, and deafening thunder.
It also hungers, manifesting voracious and fearless lighting hounds that exchanged flesh and blood for the storm. Also something Shadow discovered for himself as he was assaulted from all sides by sentient and hateful lightning bolts.
The tribulation lightning is both merciless and tenacious, being conducted by pneuma, ensuring an inescapable backlash to any virtuous technique that dares to pitch itself against it. Another thing Shadow saw for himself at first hand as he grunted in pain, paying in blood for each tribulation hound that he killed even as he desperately dodged bolts raining from on high.
To be honest, part of me would be happy if he fled by now. It was something one would expect The Grayman, patron of rogues, thieves, and infiltrators to do. Sure, I would have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my stay in Golarion but at least this would mean he would use minions to carry his revenge. Shadow was clearly trying to track me down instead. This battle had become a matter of pride for him, he would not retreat. So be it.
I bring my hands together once more to manifest my shikigami shadow beast totality. But this time I wasn't going to summon my four heavenly generals. No, this was more akin to a maximum technique that fused the ten shikigami together into a single grotesque mass of protean churning black goo as many pieces of the beast kept emerging and sinking from the malformed and semisolid shadow.
On its own, it was pretty useless but things started to get interesting once it started manifesting the dragon tooth warriors. They emerged from it like a carapace, forming a living outer shell. They were fused to each other in a macabre marriage of flesh like a human chimera and despite the impractical appearance they were strong beyond logic – the fusion of Roman and Greek methodologies. A warrior with the strength of a thousand men under a single skin and a thousand men fighting as one. A horror crawling from primeval nightmares weighting unending power and terrible enough to behold to instill madness.
Hekatoncheire.
I had eaten enough mythical demons for some power to suffuse my shikigami without any exertion on my part and now all that power was concentrated on a single entity and the giant did not hesitate to put it to good use. The Hekatoncheire fell on Cid like a skyscraper of swords, spewing a volley of arrows and spears great enough to cloud the skies, its war cry shocked the heaven and filled the mind to the point of bursting, and its steeps quaked the earth.
Despite its colossal size, it moves at uncanny speed, a wall of brandished blades striking at everything in reach. Shadow tried to destroy it by launching itself at it like a comet and was summarily rebutted for his trouble, getting attacked by more blades than even he could handle. He is no quitter though, so he kept on trying, flying as a purple bean over its giant body. Shadow managed to deliver a few good blows but the teeming flesh of the Hekatoncheires replaced itself at a faster rate than re could wound him, getting progressively stronger as he rampaged just as the god was getting weaker and slowing down by his mounting injuries.
The balance had finally turned in my favor.
From beyond Shadow's range of perception, I shifted Promised Death into a bow and procured a starlight arrow from my virtuous heart. By sacrificing my own pound of flesh, I instilled my animus into it, as if it was one of my ravens, then let it fly. Argyrchiara opened a silver portal to transport it to Shadow's blind spot.
The umbral god managed to sense it in the last second yet the starlight arrow danced through the air as if it had wings and still managed to graze Shadow in the side before running head first in another silver gate to attack Shadow once more, but this time it was accompanied by two more raven arrows that then became eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight until Shadow was caged inside a flying unkindness of starlight.
I was firing like a machine gun, and despite their encumbrance, the raven arrows deftly avoided the Hekatoncheires thanks to the strategic use of portals, the guidance of the Golden Thread, and their deft maneuverability. This was a checkmate. Between my crippling opening strike, the curse of promised death, the leeching effect of my domain, the disorienting power of my storm, and my overwhelming assault, my victory is assured-
"I"
The electric words shocked me to my core. Something was wrong. I recognize it. It is something familiar yet for the life of me I could not place it. This feezed me on the spot, wasting time I did not have.
"AM"
That was when it clicked. This familiar feeling, it was death. How ironic. Pieces fall into place, Shadow was so overwhelmed he focused his power inward, trying to survive for long enough until he had concentrated enough power… enough for this. I had cornered him to the point he was using his trump card… or last desperate resort.
Well, I had one of those kinds of moves of my own. It almost killed me the first and last time I used it, but my battle with the Storm Lord gave me an idea about how to use it. I hardened my raven midnight mantle with the essence of the Iron God, reverted Promised Death to a sword once more, and closed the distance separating shadow and me using a silver portal.
"ATOMIC!"
VS
"BLACK FLASH: SUPER NOVE!"
-//-
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Next chapter Zagreus is in the airport glazing Cid that he wasn't even really trying all along! Thanks for your support and patronage but this is the end of this story.
Okay, I jest. This would be a good place for a cliffhanger and originally intended to end it here but since this is pretty much the end of this fight, I decided to might as well wrap it up with a nice bow.
Enjoy.
-//-
After the world had been consumed by light, the first thing I had become aware of is how the stars looked different inside the Worldwound. I had lost conscience and blacked, breaking my domain, but I was still alive! Breaking my main defense once more just after having reconstituted it was a major pain yet still a cheap price for my life. I had burned as much heart blood as I dared in that final attack yet it still hadn't been enough. This reality chaffed but a cold and calculating part of me had assessed from the very start that I wasn't in the same weight class as Cid.
Not yet, that is. That is why I prepared contingencies as soon as I verified his identity. As it turned out Heaven hold a dim view on quitters, the angels Panaka saved didn't get the warmest of welcome after escaping the Ward Stone. Something a powerful planetar angel called Ablon in the loyal faction had anticipated and while Deskari's corruption could not sway her away from his tenure my heroic display did.
I had found myself a fan. She willingly departed with the other angels and persuaded some among them to return to the material plane to follow me. Self-appoint herself as my conscience, becoming the annoying angel on my shoulder. I guess from her point of view this was akin to an early investment in a great stock that would bomb in the future. And as I used all my remaining strength to look around, I could not deny this angel investor of mine turned out to be something of a big shot upstairs, having enough clout to open some doors.
Shadow was in deep shit! His victory high must have been really short-lived. Abadar, the god of civilization could be easily identified by his Gilgamesh impression. The First Vaunt, said to house perfect copies of everything that has ever existed, something he used as projectiles to turn Shadow in a pincushion. No surprise he would answer the call – Norgorber's thievery is an aversion to the laws that society relies on that undermine honest gained wealth.
What was surprising was that he wasn't alone; it seems even gods are not above peer pressure. Iomedae's presence was unsurprising, she wasn't shy to manifest her beliefs Shadow had evaded justice too long and suspected his involvement in the death of Aroden. Sarenrae was more surprising, I guess even the redeeming godess got burned by Shadow a few too many times. Both Torag and Erastil sees the activities Norgorber promote as a cancer threatening the communities and cities under their stewardship.
The straw that broke the camel's back is the fact gods are not supposed to interfere in the material plane directly unless through extenuating circumstances. A gentleman's agreement Shadow had flaunted too many times. Sure, I was the one that picked this fight but who would give the god of thieves the privilege of reasonable doubt at this point? The fact he was trying to murder their silver bullet for the Worldwound problem was damning. The only reason they hadn't stepped directly is due to the risk of an all-out war with the Abyss.
What they can do is enforce this law against a loner god after he got weakened by a lesser existence. Who among the twenty will dare to step up in favor of one when five stand against him? Shadow has a lot of peers more than capable of antagonizing him by themselves only looking for an excuse to pick a fight.
While I am not a fan of appealing to higher power, there is such a thing as reading the room. Besides how cool was it that I goaded almost all greater gods of good and order into jumping the god of fighting dirty?! Ha, and here comes Heaven's answer. How typical.
**************************************************************************
*** Zagreus checkmate the Eminence in Shadows ***
**************************************************************************
- Location
- united states
Of course an Eminence in Shadow has to be good at intrigue as well, I guess in Cid's view this was Zagreus plan all along!
A rival Eminence in Shadow for him?, now he's going to reverse engineer Cultivation from what he saw? or something else just as ridiculous.
maybe give up his godhood and start over from the beginning again?
A rival Eminence in Shadow for him?, now he's going to reverse engineer Cultivation from what he saw? or something else just as ridiculous.
maybe give up his godhood and start over from the beginning again?
Shadow's getting the Hein era sakuna treatment