Monsters could have both abilities and features, Daniel knew. How much of this was forced overlap between their domain and the dominant Octyrrum he wasn’t sure. It may be no longer possible to see how the monster domain worked in a pure environment considering the state of territory without the mortal system on this world.
While this was true, they tended to be more limited compared to their mortal counterparts. Even the strongest monster he’d ever faced had a limited toolset. Part of the balance had to be in biology, since duskers were among the largest of mortal species whereas you could find some insanely huge threats among higher level monsters. But that wasn’t everything. The whitesprings had shown Daniel that there had been pieces missing, and another revealed itself now.
Spreading its wings, the red bird monster stopped in place to hover in midair. The afterimages parted, curving out and back into the bird making a simultaneous return. As they were absorbed, a mana pulse rippled out. Wait, what? Daniel stared at the tag over the monster, but it had remained unchanged. You can’t do that until level 4.
People were beginning to move in the streets below, spurned to brave the open to get away from the fighting and the sudden heat forced into the night air. The thief of Tounaki’s groove hovered above them, no longer seeming to need wings to sustain flight as its head jerked between Daniel and the helmeted warrior.
It’s getting bigger, slowly. At first the level 3 had been eagle sized, impressive for something its tag still called a sparrow, though it was now half his size. Whatever it’s going to do, it’ll be fire related. I could Flash Craft a resistant scalebound shield, but too much mana.
Absentmindedly, he stabbed himself with the lightning ring and recoiled as part of the skin on the opposite side began to burn. That was his queue to start charging Power Shot, at the same time calling out to the other mortal. “I can clear out the rest of the weaker ones, can you hold off that one for a bit?”
He got a simple nod in reply, which was enough. Daniel set his sights on the regrouping collection of level 2 monsters, now in the single digits. He knew he had two or three attacks left in the current onslaught chain as matters stood. The damage bonus was becoming too great to self-inflict, and the true threat was outright immune to one of his two damage types.
Flying straight toward the collection of monsters, Daniel prepared to strike a tricky balance. Charge his shot up too long and he’d lose the damage buff from onslaught, and endanger the people below. Fire too soon and he might have to hunt down stragglers, robbing him of the opportunity to use Lion Charge on the sparrow. There was no immediately obvious right answer, and this was nothing Moment of Clarity could help him with either given all the moving pieces had to be moving to gauge. It was down to intuition, reading, and being in the moment. Trusting yourself and your judgment.
Daniel would like to say he’d gotten to where he was solely off of his own effort and experience, but that would be a lie. It wasn't Beast Mode’s trickle down effect either, not really. It was, at its core, the effect Hunter had had on him by presence and bond. The ringcat rarely hesitated in combat, deciding on action quickly and not letting excess variables overload him. They’d always learned from each other, and that had continued beyond death.
The blast bow fired at the perfect time, catching the majority of the flock before it could part in the resulting explosion and without touching the roofs below. A brief plume of smoke covered the area, transient from oxidation rather than something like his cloudburst cloak which would stick around for longer. It was still a brief moment of cover that only he could see through as he flew through the remains.
When it faded, Daniel had a burnt ludegrund speared through the trackball with a dagger he’d drawn after firing. Golden, heliorite. He had made a lot of those back in the day and knew Khare had their own stockpile remaining. The radiant damage progressed elemental onslaught, which activated again as Daniel scraped a finger wearing the lightning ring across the ludegrund’s tough carapace, killing it with the enhanced lethal current.
Rather than waste time pulling the dagger back out, Daniel used a quick Telekinetic Reach to propel it back into a waiting bag of holding. That it had momentum when it reached the opening didn’t matter, it couldn’t damage the space inside once it reached it. He was loading another round at the same time with enough presence of mind to not spike himself with the ring he was wearing.
Getting better, Daniel thought as he considered his actions, firing a simple Snap Shot to down the last, fleeing monster. There was an odd layering of elemental sensations now, the trance burning on the inside while Lion Charge made all of his hair stand on end. Gotta make this quick. Wait, fuck.
Observing the ongoing duel between the evolved sparrow and the unknown Blessed, Daniel could tell a few things. For one, despite the fact that they shared a power that let them ‘hold’ weapons near extended wings, they weren’t Kahvin. This fighter was confident, bold, and kept the fighting high in the air despite that leaving him open to the fire the sparrow was now freely throwing.
That was important because the air itself around the monster had grown hazardous. Any metallic equipment the Blessed had on them was beginning to glow faintly with heat, and that told Daniel something truly unfortunate. His blast bow was less than useless against this creature.
With all the current permutations, his ammo still had two basic patterns. Explosive lightning jacket that fired a fire bullet, and explosive fire jacket that fired a lighting bullet. The bullets had variations in enchantment, but he’d stopped making the more basic ‘blank’ bullets when churning them out became tedious. It sounded lazy, but you had to remember every shot took him around 15 minutes to make. It’d seemed like prioritization of both his time and resources in the moment.
As for where his initial stockpile of those blank rounds had gone? Ask Khare.
Primary weapon nullified, Daniel stowed the blast bow and equipped lighting claws in one hand, a heliorite dagger in the other.
Flying closer, Daniel grimly acknowledged that this enemy was a good counter to him, or at least to the powers he relied on to stay alive. The sparrow’s flame aura and pyrokinesis would heavily suppress Regeneration. I need to hold off on Beast Mode in case I get too wounded. And keep an ear out for more. The greater conflict still raged, though neither friend nor foe was moving to intervene in the three person conflict.
No, five. Daniel shielded his eyes as a sun arrow shot out from a window, the sparrow having inadvertently flown into Khiat’s firing arc. She’s been shooting out normal ones so far and at more distant targets, but the evolved monster had shown to be a greater threat. Daniel could see her aura clutch at the wall as the recoil effect hit her, but this time, she was able to regain her footing and reach for another arrow soon after the first. Is she building up a tolerance?
Khiat’s signature attack curved in the air, slightly tracking the sparrow as it successfully evaded. The dusker had impressive aim. The sparrow had at least one level on her, and something else Daniel had a thought on following the conversation with Murdon. To give the concept a name, attribute efficiency. How much of the magical enhancements in mind and body one was able to make use of. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but Daniel felt it made sense evolution was tied into that.
I wouldn’t want to fight this thing alone. He might have another opinion in Beast Mode, though he was sure even then he would regard it as a difficult fight. The sparrow had grown far more nimble despite growing in size, easily evading most of what the armored avianoid was trying to do. The seconds were counting down on Elemental Onslaught expiring, and the heat projected from the monster only grew. Daniel had survived the desert environment of Augha well enough thanks to reaching level 2 endurance before crossing the border, but it felt like he was back there now as an unpowered human. And that was about 30 meters away from the sparrow.
“Get clear!” Daniel yelled as if he were bedside in a medical drama. The armored avianoid backed off obligingly, their gear cooling as they did so. An arc of lightning released from him in the next moment. The sparrow attempted to evade, but the increase in power from Elemental Onslaught also gave the attack a wider bolt, singeing the vibrant red feathers on the end of one wing.
It had taken a few cuts from the avianoid’s sword as well, but this damage along with the entrance of two others in the fight drew out another power from the monster. With a sharp cry, a shimmer formed around its body before catching alight, the firey aura growing painful as exposed skin began to redden. This immediately and partially subsided as two copies of the sparrow’s original size separated off and moved through the air, one for each of the Blessed out in the open with the true sparrow joining the clone pursuing the avianoid.
Mentally remarking that he didn’t have that much fur to waste like this anymore, Daniel grasped another mocked up wall from his bag of holding and threw it at the clone coming for him. He expected it to tank the explosion for him as before. Instead, the section that came immediately into contact with the clone burst into fire before it worked its way out and continued after him. What the-
Shimmertail Redsparrow Minion - (2, Summoned)
Daniel had heard about Murdon’s encounter with an aircraft carrier of a giant eagle statue, but he hadn’t encountered a monster summoning another before. We’re already past the number of powers that lightning dragon had, Daniel thought, assuming anywhere from four to five passive features assisting the sparrow on top of the abilities it had shown. Fuck.
The minions did seem more real than the afterimages thrown at him earlier, though they lacked a true physical form. It was the difference between an illusion and an elemental, and these maintained their shape when struck. There was also no damaging aura centered on the semisolid avian. By the look of the falling fur-line wall, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference if it managed to hit him.
Mana’s getting close to half spent. Shouldn’t use telekinesis to try for an instakill. Instead, Daniel flipped the dagger in his hand and got ready to throw. The sparrow minion was a touch slower in the air than its progenitor but maneuvered above and behind him, trying to swoop in from a blind spot. Keen Senses allowed him to keep track of it, but the summoned monster was on its way to putting him in the center of a fire tornado by how it was moving. He didn’t trust the aiming power to compensate when the bird dodged.
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Seeing an opportunity, the minion dived at him when Daniel appeared to be too slow in turning to face it. The opening was a feint, however, as Daniel threw the dagger over his shoulder. The toss was sloppy, the minion hardly needing to dodge, and it committed to a run by attack that would strike at his legs.
That was when it was impaled from behind, a vibrant energy scorching what flame couldn’t. Can still use telekinesis on the dagger, Daniel thought, having invisibly pulled the knife back toward the minion after it had ‘missed’. As he’d hoped, the ongoing trance made up for the lack of an attack power in the hit.
He met the minion before it could recover, burning the tips of his right fingers for all he was careful to only hit it with the lightning claws. The wound wasn’t serious as the heat from the minion had lessened with the damage it had already taken. Preparing for more pain, Daniel gripped the heliorite dagger and found it cooler to the touch than he expected. Enchanted item durability, right.
The fire elemental in the shape of a bird was given no time to recover as Daniel quickly sundered its shape. He learned then that there was a minimum amount of time he had to wait before Elemental Onslaught would progress the chain, as otherwise he would have gotten infinite stacks with two sources of differing damage in the monster. Only about a second or two, but that prolonged the minion’s death enough that his hands were scorched come the end of it.
Lion Charge still down. No way I can fight the main one hand to hand. On the other end of the midair fight, the avianoid had defeated their minion but continued to struggle against the main creature. For every sword cut he landed, or arrow Khiat managed to graze it with, the sparrow would send out waves of flame, concentrated spears originating from the talons, and even one attack that extended the lines of its mouth to form a flaming beak.
Would’ve been nice to have Tounaki here to counter that. Daniel looked at the weapons in his hand, shook his head, and replaced them. He brought the blast bow back out but was careful to unload the magazine while it was still in the dimensional space. Definitely the last proc I’ll get off the trance, let’s make it count.
Holding the empty rifle in his hands and feeling time move against him, Daniel committed a not insignificant amount of mana to do one thing. “Flash Craft.”
Appearing in his hand was a solid round, as opposed to the dual-craft of separately enchanted jacket and bullet. He had found it odd that every time he created a new ammunition variant by sticking two pieces together it gave him a different entry in his Encylopedia, but he wouldn’t complain about that part of it. Daniel had stuck to the original design both because that’s what he’d based his weapon on, and by creating the pieces separately he had more chances to activate Ammunition Surplus. There was also the fact to consider that each of those formulae was marked a ‘[Combination]’ tag, which seemed to correspond to a note farther down that he couldn’t adjust which affixes or base formulae went into the final product. Hell, enchanting the entire thing took as long as making both pieces individually and was more difficult because he had to do them at the same time.
The only benefit to this quirk of his class was right now, as Flash Craft only allowed one spontaneously generated item to exist at a time. It was a horrendously inefficient way to spend mana that would drain it as fast as Telekinetic Reach on higher leveled creatures, but it’d be worth it. It was the only quick way to get a bullet with both a lightning jacket and shot. He’d made that combination before, but it’d proved unstable for obvious reasons.
It wouldn’t exist long enough to be a problem, which could hopefully also be said about the sparrow. He almost infused the round with Scatter Shot but stopped before he blew himself up, since the ammunition counted as one piece and he’d enhance what propelled the shot. Another reason he avoided making the ammunition that way.
“Big shot in three seconds!” Daniel yelled to the avianoid, trusting they’d be out of the way by then. They were clearly competent, minimizing the time they spent in the deepest parts of the fire aura while going all out when they were close enough.
Lining his rifle as best he could to the sparrow that was now glancing sideways toward him, Daniel’s rifle kicked up. The sparrow exploded sideways as flames jetted from its wings, using some aerial dodge ability that left a destructive trail in its wake. It traveled a short distance, but far enough to get away from where Daniel’s shot would have been.
If he’d fired it. Gotcha, you bastard. Wondered if you could understand us. He activated Snap Shot when the sparrow came to a rest, actually triggering the blast bow this time instead of feigning recoil. He hadn’t necessarily expected a dodge power when he’d thought to try the trick, more concerned about the sparrow’s quick flight allowing it to evade where he’d initially aimed.
Caught off guard, the red nimbus around the bird turned purple as magical lightning enhanced by a well-stacked trance power struck. It was a high damage attack, though in truth it individually didn’t match what the armored avianoid had done in total over the course of the fight. What it did do was disorient the monster to the point that its fire aura faded noticeably.
“Feather Rain.” Another incantation sounded over Aurus as a chaingun of down began to fire from the helmeted avianoid while they moved close with the enemy.
Wait, that voice? The Hero was already striking, cutting off one of the large wings before planting a knee onto its torso, driving it down into a street where the withering aura caught loose signage alight. He raised a sword held in hands that had already reverted from wings, prepared to stab the monster in the head. A voice called out before he did.
“Wait!” Willow ran out from a nearby building, Wisp shield in front of her to mitigate the aura. Daniel quickly descended as well in case he needed to react to aggression toward her. It could come from either of the two that shared the street.
The sparrow had had its gaze firmly locked onto the Hero above it, either preparing for one last burst attack upon its death or to just glare at its killer in a moment of inspired Tlaraness. However, its head moved as Willow began to speak from what likely wasn’t a safe distance.
“I can see you. I see you.” The shield in front of her began to flicker, and already smoke was trailing from several feathers on the cusp of catching. Willow’s voice was strained, not fully ignoring the pain yet pushing on regardless. “It doesn’t have to be war! You don’t have to fight us,” she said, her voice more appropriate for a solemn deathbed than a battlefield. “It looks like you’re going to die. I don’t know what will happen to you, only that the Astral is not safe. And you, you’re broken. Not because you are a monster. It’s not your fault.” Daniel watched both the sparrow and the one pinning it warily, but both were letting her speak. In fact, there were quite a few people watching from the surrounding buildings, drawn by the spectacle and safe now that the sparrow’s aura was almost completely extinguished.
Extending a hand, Willow released Wisp into the world. As always, the spirit only remained for a brief moment, but Daniel saw a glint of recognition in the sparrow’s eyes. He’d forgotten, but you didn’t need a Spirit Master’s talent to know when a monster was more than it appeared. You just had to look and be willing to see.
“I’m helping them. I’ll help you. This conflict, this rage, it isn’t yours. The others don’t have a choice, they can’t have a choice, but you do. I’m not doing this because I want to control you. I want to set you free.” There was no visible reaction from the sparrow other than for it to close its eyes. Willow’s beak parted slightly to say something else before she cut the words off, instead bowing her head.
Amidst the confusion of onlookers, the Hero took that as a sign and finished his enemy, driving the enchanted blade clean through the neck of the shimmertail redsparrow. Everyone, Willow and Daniel included, was surprised as a red light shone from the body. Daniel had seen the aura fade in death and couldn’t mark the light. The incantation for Construct Shield was on his lips, but before it could be spoken Willow reached out with a hand. The light flowed from the corpse into it, and above the palm it collected into a small illusory image of the former sparrow. It flapped above that space, head directed at Willow’s eyes. The motion and bearing of the bound spirit were decidedly more distrusting and cautious than the shy Wisp, yet it melded into Willow’s hand all the same after a few seconds.
The existence of Beastmasters, the ongoing threat to the city, and the fact that at the end of the day they’d killed the monster all saved Willow from what might have been an attempted stoning, given the public’s distrust of all things Spiritualist-related had been ratcheted up by the attack on Aughal and the new Collapse. Instead, the moment Daniel had been dreading came as Kahvin Talongleam removed his helmet.
It was unmistakably him. The Hero had, if nothing else, a defining mark on his face. Willow looked at him with a mixture of trepidation and anger, which overrode whatever saving the sparrow’s spirit might have made her feel. Daniel hated the Hero for that, only for the man to defy expectations.
“My lady, it is to my dishonor that I recognize you as a victim of previous unsavory advances,” Kahvin began, the flowery, formal speech of Threst’s elite strangely fitting him now, as if he were no longer using it like a mask. “There are those yet in danger, and I doubt my presence is comforting to you. Know that I have chosen to embody my class. Until the danger to our people is passed, until the Octyrrum is safe once more, I, I have-“ For a brief moment, Daniel heard Kahvin struggle with his words, but it was over so quickly Willow might not have caught it. “I have foresworn any intent toward self-gain. You need not fear me, so let your mind be at ease. I am truly sorry for any pain I have caused you.” With that Kahvin flew off, aerial battles still ongoing in the distance. Daniel wasn’t worried about the city, the strength of the attacking force was waning and several auras with the evolved tag were already diving to flee from pursuit. No, at that moment he only had one thought.
What the hell happened to him?
…
Grave finished pulling himself back in the waking world, but didn’t move initially. Mortals were moving about him, mostly away once they realized they couldn’t harm his body. It was still possible for him to die, of course, but the god also knew he wouldn’t allow himself to pass into the Astral until his work was done.
The weight of his sin still weighed on him. His hands were stained. The truth he’d found during his first death was that objective morality was a lie. What he’d thought of as an uncrossable line had become his only option to prevent greater tragedy. He’d broken Andrastia’s soul to give him the strength needed to come back.
At least he had been punished justly. The body he’d returned to had lay exposed to the Crest where he had falled in the last cycle, steadily corrupted. His soul remained pure, or at least it would for long enough, but this corruption would affect how his domain manifested. Simply being in his presence would be dangerous for most, which was another possible reason for why those around him were fleeing.
Grave stood, sensing every soul within a wide radius. A large collection of them sheltered under the earth, and he knew immediately they were his killers, or descendant of them. The Illustrious. It was obvious because only they would live within the Crest themselves, because they had been forced to.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Grave said, mournfully, his first words since returning. “Brother, was one world not enough? We didn’t know this would happen, but if you leave, then you damn another knowingly. Better to let all rot here than spread the sickness.”
He flashed away, manipulating his body and soul with the Astral to cross to the boundary between the Crest and the Octyrrum. A bit of the corruption leaked further into the core of his being from the act, but it was almost negligible. Almost, though it was enough that use of his domain would eventually ensure his mind would be fully taken. It was unfortunate that even he didn’t have the means to protect himself fully, unlike the Origin Beasts.
Grave had intended to move through the world, leaving all he could untouched, until he reached the Octyrrum’s center. There he would do what needed to be done. Unfortunately, what he feared came to pass. Despite his status as one of the eight beings supporting its existence, the Octyrrum blocked his passage through its outer barrier. He pressured it, but the shield against the Crest was a powerful thing. Alone, it could take years for him to defeat.
“But, I’m not alone, am I?” He wasn’t talking about the Illustrious, or the Origin Beast rousing itself from its sleep nearby. There were denizens of the dark that sought the same thing he did, entry into the Octyrrum. Horrors. It would still take time, but if he rallied opposition from across the edges of the world, he might not be too late.
Strangely, he found his thoughts returning to the odd soul that had fled from him. Until meeting him, Grave’s time adrift in the Astral had been spent as alone as he was now. Still with his hand on the Octyrrum’s boundaries, he took a solemn moment to reflect before lowering his head. I cannot turn back. Live, my friend. May you find a way, and enjoy what moments you have before the end.
