Path of the Deathless

394 The Scarforged Unbreakable [III]

—Mythic-Fatejacker [Redacted] of the Farwalker-Mysteria394

The Scarforged Unbreakable [III]

Such was the inevitable outcome when you faced someone your equal in every measure and skill. Shiv's new Toughness Evolution ensured a single thing: fortune couldn't intercede for either of them. The blows they traded went from calamitous to feeble in a few exchanges as rival tides flung twin juggernauts against each other. The air turned to plasma, and the atmosphere boiled with apocalyptic friction.

Elbow clashed against elbow. Uppercuts were dodged. Grabs were shrugged off and then countered. Vectors were spent in violent attrition. A shared thought manifested in both fighters’ minds, twin foreheads met, and it was as if two anvils crashed together, with silvery sparks showering the hallway, now more akin to a great ravine, cascading over the Jessicas, the surviving Urris, and Cripple, who stared on, bearing witness to the battle like all the others.

At the same time, rival mana fields exploded against each other in raw exertions of magic. Neither Shiv nor his alternate was a practiced mage, and the few spells they knew were cast aside as the necks of mana hydras became limbs as well, additional means to overcome and control their rival. Twenty-four heads coiled around each other as two Aegises of Assimilation battled, forming a chaotic bundle of crimson mana that detonated and clashed not only against their mirror image but also the surrounding Legends.

Twin waves of scintillating flame clashed, the Nihilists forming an ever-combusting threshold that marked the border between Shiv and his simulated clone. And then came the arcing clashes of blade meeting blade. Shiv grew layers of jagged teeth along his body, and his clone did the same. Crescent projections capable of cleaving through matter and shredding away at mana and soulstuff greeted each other and shattered into broken fractals.

The space between the two Deathlesses turned into a splash of warring colors, and their bodies glowed bright silver on the outside while their cores flared white and red within.

Shiv shifted, taking a half-step back as he tried to drag his clone down, breaking from an underhook clinch to secure his enemy’s arm in an outside drag into a rolling takedown. The clone anticipated the transition halfway through and reacted. He stepped into Shiv rather than inverting his tides or trying to pull away—and then spiked all his vectors down in a crushing sprawl. The impact shook the hall like an earthquake, the clash of scar against scar sent silver sparks flying once more.

The blow hammered Shiv down into the ground, and the orichalcum beneath him deformed. Rather than driving force against force, Shiv pointed his vectors forward and surged. He shot out from under his clone's sprawl and crashed into a mob of Jessicas. They halted his momentum, but they didn't shove him back roughly. In fact, the Jessicas had formed a makeshift ring, and they were holding the remaining Vultegs back to keep their end of entertainment alive.

The question was cast aside as Shiv's clone slammed into him and they began to clinch-fight for dominance once more.

Shiv fought to establish a collar tie while his clone head-butted him in the chest and wrapped both arms around Shiv's lower back. He adjusted, clamped both arms tight, and held his foe at bay, preventing another takedown. Once more, their tides clashed against each other, vectors becoming rival phalanxes across every point of contact. And it was in this struggle that Shiv remembered another thing about his Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides: it wasn't just Legendary Physicality and Magical Resistance. It was also a Legendary Grappling skill.

Each tide represented a vector of force and betrayed the body's movements in vivid detail. Through them, Shiv could exert his force and establish unmatched control, rivaled only by someone else who was capable of generating their own leverage and infusing it in all they grasped.

The same principles applied magically. Their mana fields were at an absolute impasse. Everything was pinned in place, and the mana hydras themselves were coiled in such dense knots that Shiv couldn't tell where his field began and the clone's ended.

And so it ultimately came down to this: raw expressions of skill where force or power could not guarantee victory.

This, and the Harbinger that was slowly regenerating for the both of them—the only skill either could use to actually inflict true harm upon the other.

“You know something? I'm starting to get it,” Shiv gasped roughly as he suddenly inverted his tides and pulled his clone into an attempted hip toss. The clone went with Shiv's force, seizing his arm in a tight grip and rolling over him, trying to whiplash Shiv off his feet instead. But then Shiv countered again, turning until he collapsed against his clone, establishing side control, but only for a moment as the clone kicked out from below, sliding up and getting back to his knees before attempting to sprawl on Shiv once more.

“Starting to get what?” his clone grunted. Shiv rolled to his side as the clone's hip hammered a divot into the ground. They shot for each other at the same time. Shiv caught the clone's left wrist while the clone caught his in return. They rose into the sky and circled each other, trying to find an angle, waiting for a moment to break free. “That it's kind of a nightmare to fight us? That we just don't die like we used to?”

Despite the ache in Shiv's chest and the exhaustion creeping across his muscles, he couldn't help but laugh. “Yeah, that. You know, I missed the last version of you. He was easy to bully, and at least I could cut him open when I slammed an elbow into his face. Hitting you is like trying to break metal with a rubber hammer. Gods, I can't wait for the Harbinger to reform so I can talk you to death.”

“The feeling's mutual, you sack of unbreakable shit.”

Shiv and his clone slammed their skulls against each other once more, glaring each other down point-blank as their expressions shifted between seething sneers and exhausted smiles. Bit by bit, the golden shell that constituted the Harbinger began piecing itself together like a puzzle coming into shape. Time began to quiver around them, and they waited, their hearts pounding, their muscles straining, prepared for the moment where this battle gained a new dimension—that final dimension that could actually see them crack and break the other.

But before that moment arrived, both of their minds went blank as another question emerged, a question born as they realized the crowd was still spectating. The Jessicas looked on, their visors up, faces blank. Cripple’s hand was raised in a clenched fist, but even it held itself in restraint—as if the Ascendant wasn't sure who to strike down.

Shiv's clone let out an exasperated wheeze. "Hey guys, what the fuck? What are you looking at? Come here and help me finish him off. Jessica, stop staring and start hitting him! Just swap between your swords and other shit and hit him with magic. He's not immune to that. Why am I the only guy wrestling with him right now?”

It was pure chance and blind luck that the clone spoke first, for it gave Shiv a moment to process what was actually happening. It gave him a glimpse into the empathic cores around him and the minds that swirled above. They didn't look confused; they confused, and there was only one reason why that was. They couldn't tell which was the clone and which was Shiv. Both of them were Deathless. Both of them were caged in a dense shell forged of platinum scars. Both of them had the exact same skills, the exact same attunements, and were made of the exact same vitality.

And somewhere in the carnage of battle, as their manas crashed together, shrouding them in a chain of blasts, everyone must have lost track of who was whom and which one they were meant to assist.

It took all of Shiv's willpower to stop himself from laughing.

“What the hells are you talking about?” Shiv snarled at his clone. “Don't you try to pull this shit on me; you're the guy who looks like he has an Adam lodged in his chest.”

A near-fallacious statement impossible to prove, for both should have looked around as large as each other and perfectly resembled each other due to the dense scar-shell forming their exoskeletons. They were perfect twins down to the last detail. From the pale white irises in their eyes, gleaming like twin circular rivers upon their scar-shrouded faces. Even their silhouettes matched their asymmetrical contours, ridged with scarred plating, shining platinum like misshapen armor harvested and crafted from crystalline scabs.

The Jessicas looked between the Shivs and let out a chorus of sighs. A few cradled their heads as the entertainment became a pain in their skulls.

Gardener of Doubt 76 > 78

“Oh, you lying piece of shit!” Both Shivs spat at each other. Once more, Shiv struggled not to guffaw, for he was the only one present who could differentiate himself from his foe. After all, he possessed the Harbinger, and while his clone's empathic core was filled with frustration and building outrage, Shiv was alight with mirth and consumed by an impish desire to fan the flames of chaos.

More of their Harbingers clipped back together, golden fragments assembling a shell that presented an idealized version of Shiv, captured within a mirage of gold-tinted magic. Both Harbingers had their eyes closed, but their expressions tightened, and their fingers twitched. They were on the verge of waking: the first to speak would also draw first blood.

The moment drew near. Shiv and his clone spent the last of their tides trying to overcome the other—and promptly collapsed against each other instead.

“I’m going to love watching you break apart,” Shiv growled. “You deserve it for what happened to Adam.”

It was an utterly unreasonable accusation, and the emotional harm it inflicted cut both ways. The cores of both Deathlesses grew inflamed—which meant the clone carried Shiv's regrets as well, even if he was simulated to stop Shiv from completing the Delve.

With that thought, the Nihilist laughed. Instead of being two separate voices, the hollow flame spoke as one.

Shiv saw his clone's core swell with dread. They both understood what was about to follow. They were equals in all aspects: physically, magically, spiritually, but there was a critical difference in the existential. Even if it took a few dozen more turns or a few thousand, Shiv was going to leave the Delve stronger than ever before, but the clone, if there was any sentience in him at all, was damned to fade from existence—until the next time Shiv Delved.

The thought of suffering such a reality made Shiv's heart coil with horror. But it also hardened his resolve and granted him the perfect means to see his adversary broken. For though the System was cruel and uncaring, Shiv had countless reasons to hope and strive.

But his clone? There was no future. There was no past. There was no progress. There was no one and nothing that waited for him. This was all he had, and desperation didn't make him any better than Shiv. It just made him less.

And from the grief emanating from the clone's core and that bitter despair behind his eyes, Shiv knew what was about to follow.

A resonating crack sounded. Both of the Harbingers woke at the same time, eyes snapping open, mana fields blazing gold. Both Harbingers reached out for each other, their mouths opening as they cast forth their psionic proclamations. A wreath of enkindled flames erupted out on Shiv's core, and the clone mirrored him down to the last action.

The clone's curse traveled across time and thought, striking Shiv like a bomb that went off from within. His core cracked open. His body fractured. Even his invincible body couldn't withstand the truth behind his anguish. Shiv would always defy. He would never bow to the System's will, not completely, but he couldn't step beyond it. Even when he could escape briefly to the Backstage, it was a respite rather than an evacuation. He always had to come back. There was nowhere else to go in all existence.

He lived beneath the will of a cruel master, one that yearned for him to kill and fight and struggle. One that incubated monsters like the Challenger. Its favor was like an infection, and Shiv was sicker than anyone else. But rather than withering, rather than dying, rather than being reduced in any way, the plague simply made him stronger and drew even greater threats to him. He was a nexus of peril; he was damned and blessed in equal measure. No escape, not for him nor his victims to come.

But still, the Deathless could hope. The Deathless could struggle. The Deathless could grow stronger beyond measure with the hopes that he could gain new, unique skills outside of the System's parameters. He'd already obtained some that allowed him to break every rule, to escape context itself. What was to say that he couldn't get even further? That was what Udraal made him for, after all. Despite all the misgivings Shiv held for his creator, the hate they shared for the System was deep and true.

And so, though Shiv's body bled, though the cracks spider-webbed across his entire person, causing red to leak out between the fractured scars of platinum bright, he remained unbroken.

The same fate did not befall the clone.

The clone’s body fractured into pieces. His Harbinger, just restored, now scattered into orbiting fractals of gold. As he staggered back, Shiv witnessed the cascade of collapses. The clone's heart imploded in parts, his ego savaged beyond description. His mind split like a broken plate dashed against the ground, and his body followed suit, with great fissures exposing the glistening tissues within. But it still wasn't enough. The clone survived the attack, and so Shiv found himself reaching for a more desperate measure.

It was in the back of his head all this time, the reason why he was in this Delve in the first place. Scion of Pain, his evolved Blessing. Something stolen from the Challenger alongside the Red Rider's Hand. Both Shiv and his clone had taken substantial wounds, but the former was at a disadvantage when it came to actual injuries, for he'd spent the last week getting brutalized, dying, and breaking in an attempt to raise his Toughness. Should the clone survive the following detonation, then this encounter was certain to fail; should Shiv come asunder from the wound he has already taken, then the result would be all the same.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But if the gambit worked, if the clone broke before Shiv died, then he would remove the greatest threat against him, the only enemy that could reliably hurt him among the forces arrayed.

And so, with nothing to lose, no penalty beyond time spent in frustration, Shiv called upon the power of the Challenger and let every wound be amplified and every pain turn to untrammeled torment.

He learned to regret that choice immediately.

Past injuries burst open anew, spraying geysers of blood as Shiv’s limbs were nearly torn free from his torso while his chest and abdomen were nearly shredded down to the quick. Adam's tumor-cocoon was exposed to the world, and the other injuries Shiv endured across the past week and even a little bit beyond came back to grace him all at the same time.

Yet, unlike in the Stranger's Garden, Shiv wasn't obliterated. He endured, his scar-forged body gleaming bright as a collection of devastating injuries, each capable of killing him at Heroic-Tier in Toughness several times over, simply painted deep scabs upon him. His Skill tried to adapt, but the injuries came as a plethora, and so every single wound he endured added its own helping of weight.

Shiv was driven to his knees, and the moment he struck the ground, it curved beneath him, bending and groaning as he plunged straight down. His damage debt made him so heavy that even orichalcum couldn't hold him, could only distend. His mana fields were shredded. What tides he had were spent as magical attacks tore through him. Shiv's mind was ripped asunder, and insanity nearly took him. A blow across time nearly saw him eroded to dust. His Biomancy went haywire, and the Aegis burst like it had been overfilled from within. But his flesh magic proved remarkable and resilient, and the hydra that it represented began regenerating immediately, sparing him from any greater mutations.

And while Shiv shivered on both knees, unable to rise or even move with how much weight was pressing upon him and how spent he was of strength and stamina, the clone suffered a worse fate.

His insides spilled out from the brutal gash that lined his body from the prior attack. The wounds before went deep and wide, but now they were practically doorways, causing the clone's insides to pour out. The place where he unraveled physically, his mind and heart experienced another level of annihilation. All three aspects of his Tripartite were bound in the same direction: that of absolute destruction.

Witnessing that sent a surge of energy through Shiv. Though he'd lost all accumulated tides, now he activated his Harbinger, and time flowed to a near halt. He spent seconds gathering new vectors, supercharging himself with strength in anticipation of the final blow. Where a single second passed outside, Shiv's personal point in time slowed its travel dramatically, and only when he was ready did Shiv fling himself across the distance and into the future, striking the clone with a temporal leap.

He drove his hand deep into the clone's open body—clutching his rival's heart and squeezing tight.

The clone's Onus of the Scarforged Unbreakable refused to let him sustain any physical injury, but he continued breaking regardless, for the body had to mirror the heart and the mind, and both were on the verge of complete devastation.

Shiv felt the clone's heart thunder in his hand, each beat sending blast waves through the room. He tightened his grip not on the clone's pounding flesh but his boiling emotions, threatening to unravel; his mind, coming apart at the seams. Shiv struck the clone with his free hand, but rather than delivering physical blows, he used his Harbinger to convey mental anguish and emotional torment. His fist struck home, and every impact sank deeper than the Onus could deny.

The clone let out a whimper and wrapped both hands around Shiv's elbow. He tried to extricate himself, but Shiv took another step forward, and suddenly the clone shattered apart. His greatest magical field burst first, causing the Harbinger to scatter into fragments. For just a moment, Shiv saw that realized version of himself close his eyes in quiet acceptance of death, and that sent a flicker of pride in him. Watching another version of himself face an absolute end with dignity left Shiv touched in a strange way.

A final display of psychological strength before inevitable oblivion meant nothing, for oblivion set everything to nothing. When one existed relative to oneself, the emotions mattered, the thoughts mattered, the deeds mattered; the deeds endured. Especially for all who bore witness.

The clone stopped trying to pull away. Even as he started to crumble, he squared his shoulders and faced Shiv down. His eyes gleamed bright, pale, and defiant, while his heart went empty of all trauma and all fear.

“But you're wrong,” the clone whispered, his throat choked thick with blood. “I am not nothing. I am not non-existence. I am more than a construct, just like you can be more than a slave. I was . And you,” he said, placing a disintegrating finger against one of Shiv's platinum scars, “will bear my mark here.” Slowly, his finger drifted upward, and his hand and arm and body began to dissolve into fading fragments. “Here,” the clone repeated as his face dissolved, and pressed his digit against the center of Shiv's head. “You'll remember…”

His words went unfinished. His death arrived before what felt like the proper time. Shiv watched as his other self, this System-simulated version of him, came undone, collapsing into a mess of pieces that were burned away by Shiv’s enkindled flames. Where once stood a rival, now there wasn't even ash. With no turmoil to burn, nothing of the Tripartite remained. The enkindled flames parted, slithering away, not as smoke but nothingness.

Harbinger of the Tripartite Ruin 335 > 338

In the aftermath, in an uncanny moment, both the Nihilist and the Harbinger spoke as one, and the question they posed to Shiv left him silent and thinking.

The Jessicas looked on, their cores alight with pride, but their minds condensing as they snapped down their visors and woke the manifolds within their weapons. The Urris began shouldering forward, stomping as a renewed avalanche seeking to leave him a bloodied smear. Cripple did not move. Instead, the Ascendant looked on and waited, its empathic core alight with admiration, shame, fear, and more. Its single orb-like eye gazed in the direction of Shiv's alternate, and it fell deep in thought while the rest of the great ravine of red and gold came alive once more.

Shiv answered his Skills.

As he formed these thoughts, a twinge of existential dread snaked through Shiv. The shape of one's ego and the state of one's consciousness were fragile, fickle things, and it was so easy to see oneself mutilated. All you needed to do was take certain things away. Jessica didn't need to be Veronica's dog, but grief compelled her to accept the metaphorical leash, and where Shiv judged her before, now he found himself wondering what needed to be ripped away from him before he finally became a parody of himself. The same question applied to Roland and everyone else Shiv knew.

Who were they if not sculpted by the world?

Shiv's clone was his equal in every single way except the existential. And now that clone was dead, broken in a single exchange—his shattering ensured as Shiv called upon the Challenger's blessing to make all wounds magnified, to make all pain unbearable. Shiv barely survived himself, but he did survive.

“Circumstance,” Shiv whispered to himself. “Always and forever, circumstance has a say.”

And then, all around him, he heard clapping: metal gauntlets clashing together in exultation and near mockery of his triumph. He found the Jessicas cheering him, their tessellated armors shifting and shrieking against the ambient mana.

“Congrats!”

“Congratulations!”

“Nice job killing yourself, kid. That's a new kind of suicide. The System should give you a skill for that. Congratulations!”

“Congratulations!”

The moment went on and on and felt ever more surreal with each passing second. Shiv blinked as he took in the Jessicas around them and noted how their weapons were brandished, leveraged over shoulders, yes, but clutched in ready hands.

“I don't think he's dead,” Shiv grunted. “That's why it hasn't reset. I think he accidentally turned himself into dust using one of his new Unique Skills. We gotta wait for him to come back.” Unlike the half-truth Shiv used to blur the separation between himself and his clone before, this lie was hasty and desperate, and he couldn't keep the exhaustion out of his voice.

“Yeah, maybe work on that deception a little bit more,” a Jessica replied with a wince. “You were doing pretty good before, but now, in the moment?” She tutted judgmentally as she shook her head. “You need to learn how to improvise better, Shiv. Besides, we know it's you. We knew since the moment you started talking about how your clone couldn't escape. That kind of gave away everything. Honestly, the only reason why we didn't try to beat you to death during the process was that we wanted to see which of you would come out on top. Congratulations, you're smarter than you are dumb, and you're tougher than you are fragile. That's a hell of a thing to achieve for a Pathbearer. You should be proud.”

Shiv's trembling got worse. The blood loss was getting severe, and the damage dealt to his mind and heart ensured that his Biomancy couldn't just see his body restored. “Can I trade in that pride for a favor? Maybe you guys just wait a minute or five before you start hitting me again?”

The Jessicas briefly shared a look, and all laughed as one. “Nah. Besides, we want to see if it fits. And if it fits, I want to see how deep Cripple can ram it in.”

A blizzard of pure terror flooded Shiv's stomach. “If what fits? Jessica, you can hit me. You can beat the hell out of me, but do not come near—Oh my felling gods.”

He laid eyes on it, the one she was talking about, for the first time. A dozen Jessicas carried a massive pillar along the sides like a battering ram. It had golden dragons engraved upon it, each one blazing bright, circulating the pillar. A chain of characters gleamed along the length as well. It seemed, perhaps, Eastern? Shiv couldn't read that at all.

To his surprise, the staff shrank until it was small enough to be a needle, and one Jessica took hold of it after a brief scuffle that involved a lot of shoving and slapping. She and a few others were fighting over who had the right to de-dignify Shiv before he finished this Delve.

“What the hells is that?” Shiv growled. He began generating Shapeless Tides as fast as he could, desperate to move, desperate to fight the Jessicas off. He also took extreme measures, filling his rear with clustered tumors. “Jessica, you keep that thing away from me. You can beat on me in this Delve or wherever, but you keep that thing away from me. And stop smirking underneath your helmet. I can see all of you. I can see how happy your hearts are. You're sick. You are sick, twisted women. You have a problem. Who the hells keeps targeting someone else's ass?”

“I don't know, who the hell rips their own dick off as a distraction?” she shot back. “Anyway, Cripple, let's see how strong you really are. We'll plant the stake, and you can pound it in.”

“End Encounter!” Shiv screamed, nearly begging the System. “Gods damn it, you bastard! End Encounter! It's been twelve minutes! It's been twelve minutes!”

“Sorry, Shiv,” one of the Jessicas sang along, “but I'm afraid it's only been six. Still got halfway to go. That's the way a Toughness Delve goes. Now. I think we're gonna kick the shit out of you first, so if you can do us a solid and resist, that'll make the whole experience better.”

A long-suffering sigh escaped from Shiv as he envied his clone's non-existence. At least he was getting an awesome Toughness skill out of this entire ordeal.

At least. At least.

Such consolations were the only thing keeping him sane right now. “...Fuuuuuucccckkkk.”

Coping 37 > 39

***

“Wait, why the hells am I attacking him in the Delve? Why am I the bad guy? I don’t want to be the asshole. And why is there a small army of me? One should be enough to finish him.” Jessica's annoyance climbed with every subsequent question. If Valor was being honest about what was happening inside the Delve, she didn't like it. She didn't want to be some kind of System goon used to brutalize the kid—not that she had a problem with doing so herself. She just wanted to do it for her own reasons, not someone else's.

And for the clone bit, Jessica hated that more than all the others, mainly because she had her own bad experiences with clones due to her many Delves.

Jessica enjoyed dueling herself, but that was the only thing she enjoyed when it came to facing down her spiritual shadow. All the historical and emotional baggage that came with it usually reduced her to a binge-drinking mess for months afterward. The turmoil her Delves put her through got bad enough that she delayed her Legendary Toughness Evolution for over ten years.

Jessica sighed.

And the worst and best part of it was how much she'd helped. Veronica was going to hate this. Sure, Jessica could claim that this entire misadventure was good and spin it as some kind of intelligence-gathering opportunity, but in truth, if the kid's Toughness was as good as Valor boasted, then the Yellowstone Republic needed to establish a special elimination force specifically for Shiv. Even Jessica might have to get a little creative if she wanted to keep kicking his ass, though she still had plenty of options besides the purely physical. She wasn't the trickiest Pathbearer nor a dedicated mage, which was why she had a nation's worth of magic swords and other weapons in her repertoire.

“He should be rousing soon,” Valor said, ignoring her questions. The ancient Pathbearer cast flowing streams of faint blue, binding his soul with Shiv using a chain of Animancy. He waited with patience, but his eyes were narrow, and Jessica suspected he was more worried than he let on. “If he does not wake in a few more seconds, then that means he has failed that final encounter, and I will return to assist him. Have you given thought to what I asked of you earlier? I know that it is quite a request, but—”

“It's more than ,” Jessica muttered with annoyance. “There's not much I can do. You understand the worth of experience and constant practice better than even me. We've been honed over centuries, and even if he's a special, special boy, made from special, special stuff, created to do special, special things, there's too much he doesn't know and can't do that we take for granted. I can't teach him how to counter my swordsmanship and all the other Martial Skills I have in just a few seconds. He will be here for years and years. He's naturally skilled in a lot of ways, but it will take a century before he gets anywhere near either of us.”

She paused. “He's talented when it comes to the act of fighting itself. Well, potentially more than just talented. But he’s not a true genius. Not in terms of combat unto itself. Between his raw, unrelenting growth and unstoppable psychology, he might grind a few true geniuses down through raw attrition alone, but more likely than that, he’ll be better off using his real gift to crack their hearts and minds, and ruin their fucking bodies with it.” Jessica’s lip twitched. “And maybe I can help him there. If he really needs to know how to hurt me deeper than he already can—Broken Fucking Moon!”

Jessica flinched back as Shiv shot upright with an animalistic roar. His Revenant flared bright with vitality, and he thrashed about as he snapped his hips from side to side. “CRIPPLE! STOP PUNCHING THE FUCKING PILLAR! I CAN FEEL IT IN MY LUNGS! JUST BECAUSE YOU HELPED ME TURN THIS SKILL UNIQUE DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN DO THIS! I’M NEVER GONNA FORGIVE—”

Shiv froze. Slowly, he reached down behind himself and patted his ass. “Oh… oh, holy felling shit. I’m out. It’s over. I survived.” A sob escaped him. “I made it. My ass is safe. My ass is safe…”

Immediately, Jessica knew this was likely her doing.

Rusty grumbled aloud.

“Godsfuckingdammit, Rusty,” Jessica hissed through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you just scream that to everyone?”

“You!” Shiv wheezed, spinning on Jessica and shaking Valor off before the lich could ask him how he was.

“Oh, shit,” Jessica muttered. Her battle-honed instincts screamed. The boy’s body language was barely-chained violence. At any moment, he might—

He skipped across the room in a burst of gold and displaced time. In a half-second, Shiv jumped right beside Jessica to loom over her with both hands clasped together in prayer. Rusty was already in her hand—she didn’t know when she drew, only barely stopping herself before she drove the tip of her Awakened blade through Shiv’s skull.

“Jessica,” Shiv said, his voice heavy with pain. “I need you to promise me something.”

Her mouth opened slowly. “I, uh…”

“Never use the fucking growing dragon needle on me again.”

“Wait?” Jessica gasped, alarmed. “How do you know that I have a replica of the Pillar That Halts the Sea? The Delve showed you that?”

“Promise me!” Shiv practically screamed. “You can beat the shit out of me in any other way, but you do not ever use that thing on me—or ever show me how it vibrates again! Ever! Felling ever!”

“Ascendants—Shit! Yeah, okay, sorry!” Jessica cringed with sympathy. “So. The other mes—”

“The Delve’s done, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I did awesome. I did great. I beat the shit out of myself. I’m the best. I’m the godsdamned Toughest Pathbearer in…” Shiv took a moment to steady himself.

“Shiv,” Valor asked gently. “Are you sure you’re well?”

The kid stared off blankly for a moment. “I will be. In a few seconds. After my mind finishes healing. After that… Wait. The Perch—”

“Duel’s postponed,” Jessica said. “No point in rushing that anymore. Roland’s given you an extension, so you don’t have to—”

“Not that: the Culturist. Adam.”

“Oh, right,” Jessica muttered. “Yeah, so—”

Shiv vanished in a splash of time magic once more, leaping out of the room—and across time.

In the aftermath, only Jessica and Valor remained—aside from Merrielmel, who was shaking in the corner, desperate to hide his presence.

“Well,” Jessica breathed. “That was something.”

“You should deal with your problem,” Valor said, his eyes blazing with judgment. “Read the books your sword suggested. I implore you.”

“What? No, man—Look, you get me, Valor—Legends develop their own quirks.”

“Indeed. But I do not consider blade-based sodomy a quirk. More like an expression of severe mental illness. One must hold themself to a higher regard. Especially when it comes to handling the young.” Valor’s Necromancy then crackled a few shades darker. “Lest there come consequences. My boy likes you, Jessica, and he can endure cruelties and torments that leave lesser men shattered. But I will not see him traumatized repeatedly—even if he can recover from them. Mind yourself. I ask this as a favor of dignity rather than an issuance of threat.”

And with that, Valor vanished as well, using his Legendary Stealth to go missing mid-conversation.

Silence returned to the room. One of Merrielmel’s drones broke it by crashing against a wall. Jessica looked on, slack-jawed, at where Valor used to be. Then came a thump as Rusty ejected a series of books.

Rusty suggested again.