To my esteemed adversaries at Aviary:

I have recently come across a few of your agents. Please don't blame them for being discovered. These things happen sometimes, especially when you train your little birds a little too well. Hence, I think I would like to offer some constructive criticism.

Firstly, people have flaws. People don't have these neat and unproblematic personalities. The receptionist you sent to serve me in replacement of my last one was a little too cheerful, a little too bright, and the way she spoke belongs on the page of a novel rather than the messiness of daily life. Same thing goes for several other people you've decided to seed into said daily life. My gardener, housekeeper, and all people I've had to replace due to previous members of my staff leaving or passing from age? They're also too neat, too perfect. You made them to appeal to my personality, and that's what ultimately tipped me off. So, don't do that.

Secondly, why did you assume that I was the weak link between me and my grandmother? You really should just send younger men and women to feed her lust. Of course, you won't be getting them back after she sates her desires, and their fates will be unenviable to say the least. However, her lips will loosen, and you will learn things. If they're to your benefit, I can say my grandmother is a double-edged sword in many ways, for me and for you. Involve yourself with her at your peril.

Now, some suggestions. You should target some of the other Avatars instead of me. Maybe go find Anthony. The old man needs some fun in his life. Thank you for keeping me on my feet and refining my alertness, but please understand your position. I am not someone you can deceive. I am not someone you can blackmail. I am not someone who can be bent to the will of another.

Everything I do has been on the basis of manipulation and influence. We might not be of the same cloth. I'm no spy, I'll tell you that much. But politics is war by other means. And politics is war once you get past a certain level of power. Words have power. Power enough to kill the first person that reads this letter.

And, as a final warning, if you continue to annoy me, I will dictate a strongly worded letter, and when it hits your shores, New Albion will experience a mass casualty event that goes on for a decade.

Anyhow, thank you for your time, thank you for reading my letter, and please, if you're going to disobey me, at least send better agents. And by better, I mean flawed.

Legend Councilwoman Veronica Chandler

-A Letter from Legend-Avatar Veronica Chandler to Aviary

184 (I)

Rhetorical [I]

Veronica's command struck Shiv like an explosion. A literal explosion. It assailed him physically, mentally, and spiritually. From the very first syllable she spat, he felt something crash against his Shapeless Tides. It was like the sky was falling on him, like a massive hand was squeezing him tight. He tried to resist using his own Legendary Skill, but Veronica was powerful, and he felt himself gasp before her impossible might.

Then his Shapeless Tide malfunctioned once more as the poisonous Animancy curdled inside his being. His vectors vanished. Suddenly, Shiv had no means at all to resist the Legend-Avatar's power. He cried out in pain as a foreign force forced its way into his very bones. His ligaments tore, his muscles ripped; he launched himself forward, even though he didn't want to.

Another order was unleashed by Veronica, but Shiv felt it rip by him and strike someone else instead. "You! Fire at him!"

Adam cried out in alarm, but Shiv couldn't hear anything anymore. Instead, the only thing that echoed through his mind was the command Veronica spat. Over and over, her words became like a mantra until it was all he knew, and it wasn't simply resonating in his mind, but in his very soul as well.

Show me how you burn, then, Deathless. Make it worth my words.

Notifications flashed before him as he accelerated toward the Legendary Councilwoman. The other Avatars remained in place, simply regarding Shiv as a problem already resolved.

And then there was Veronica herself. She stared him down with a look of anticipation as he drew closer. A searing flare of pain consumed every part of him once more as a Necromancy arrow split his back open.

Another blast of soul fire burst free from Shiv's already mangled body, and darkness spread across his eyes. With his Icon of the Paindrinker still active, the misery he endured reached new heights. The Deathless was burned to the foundations of his soul, and he found himself yearning for unconsciousness. Yet unconsciousness never came. Veronica wouldn't allow it. Her voice thundered inside his soul, commanding him still, refusing to let him go.

At the same time, as the flames expanded out from him, as they came close to washing over the ascendants, Veronica spat another command, and Shiv's bloodshot eyes widened before her display of awesome power.

"Curve," Veronica simply said.

He caught the faint hint of shivering blue that emanated forth from her voice. It was the color of Animancy, followed by a distortion of Dynamancy. Shiv's mind was spiraling. The explosion of soulfire never came close to touching Veronica. Instead, it did as she bade, folding around her and the other Avatars, leaving them entirely untouched. The same could not be said for Adam and the other prisoners.

Nightmarish screams came from behind. Shiv smelled cooking flesh and caught sight of several badly burned bodies toppling over.

As Veronica's voice faded within the Deathless, he turned. He tried to go back for Adam, but Veronica whispered to him once more. "Break."

Her voice hit him like a falling hammer. Something struck his knee, but just then Shiv's Shapeless Tides came back, and instead of feeling his legs shatter, he found himself driven through the air by a blow of magical and material force. As Shiv tumbled, trying to get his bearings, he caught sight of Veronica's face once more, of how deeply she frowned.

"Well, how are you doing that?" she asked, a thin eyebrow raised. "Anthony said he stabbed you already. How are you still using your skills?"

Shiv's reply was a near-feral growl as more of Adam's screams reached his ears. This fucking bitch was keeping him from his friend. Shiv cast a quick look in the direction of his companions and found everyone beyond disfigured by his soulfire. Five was writhing; patches of fur had been replaced with long stretches of smoldering red flesh and shining alloy. Adam barely looked human at all. He was practically bald by this point, and his skin melted off his body. Gone was missing, as was Kura. Shiv hoped they had fled rather than being disintegrated, but he wasn't sure. Rebis had already been missing for a while; Shiv had no idea where he was at all. Bonk resembled a charred husk of meat rather than an orc. Even so, he gave pained wheezes that faintly sounded like laughs.

Shiv's mind whirled. A second ago, he thought there had been hope. He thought that he might just be able to escape. Now, everything had gone straight to hell, and even his most desperate strategy had failed before the Legendary Councilwoman. But without Harlock twisting his mind and spirit, Shiv reacted how he truly would when faced with a hopeless battle.

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He went berserk.

Berserk 21 > 23333333[Error]

An animalistic roar escaped the Deathless as he felt his strength explode. He flung himself at Veronica, his vectors doubling in size and flaring with kinetic energy. Shiv lost all sense of coherence. He was no longer able to maintain Overflow Tides because he couldn't cycle them. But what he did have was amplified, and he intended to tear the Legendary Councilwoman limb from limb, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Miss," Veronica cried out. The statement struck Shiv in the chest like a bomb. He felt himself get driven back slightly, but it didn't stop him. He didn't obey. His hand swung in a wide haymaker, and the air around him crackled with booming force. A sonic burst expanded around Shiv, and Veronica's dark hair flapped around her face. However, her face remained unbruised.

"A bit sloppy," Veronica muttered. "Lots of wild anger too. Yeah. Definitely your mother's boy."

He wasn't nearly as fast as he needed to be without his Inertial Overdrive consistently active, and Veronica was never in his reach in the first place. With a splash of Dimensionality, she vanished and appeared right behind him.

"Stop."

Another order hit him, this time crashing into the center of his back. He felt a part of his lower spine fracture before the heavy blow, but he ignored it. He spiked his Shapeless Tides backward. His legs were wrenched out of their sockets. His skin was partially flayed free from his flesh. Without cultivating more Toughness, Shiv couldn't sustain these forces. Agony consumed him, but that only fed his anger, fueled his berserker rage.

He slammed a fist straight against Veronica's chest for the first time, and her Dimensionality pulsated as if the surface of a lake struck by a falling stone. The Councilwoman smirked and gave Shiv a look of appreciation. "Well, I guess Cripple wasn't lying earlier. Pain's not enough to put you down. Just feeds the beast inside you, does it?"

An incoherent howl left Shiv as he wrapped his hands around her head, staring straight into her dark-brown eyes. He squeezed, but her arms remained low by her sides. Her skin flashed red-gold, then incandescent. Veronica smirked, even as Shiv exerted more of his strength. His fingers were pressing against her skin, grinding against bone, but he inflicted no harm. Tide after tide slammed into her head, but they simply broke apart without inflicting any true damage.

It was then that Shiv heard a faint melody rising in the background, and over Veronica's shoulders appeared an ethereal form, both elegant and ghostly. A long, pale-white dress glided around the Songbringer's body as she shrouded her Avatar in an aegis of sound. Her entrance brought Shiv's rage to new heights, and as his Shapeless Tides slammed into Veronica once more, her head inched back slightly. The Councilwoman's expression flickered then. A faint look of concern passed through her features as Kathereine choked in surprise.

Before she could do anything else, however, his Berserk cut out, and his Shapeless Tides followed thereafter. Suddenly, he plunged from the air, clinging onto the hem of the Councilwoman's dark coat as he tried not to fall. Clumps of mutilated meat swayed from his body, and he tried not to focus on the absolute suffering he had to endure.

A slight breath escaped from Veronica. "I can see why Cripple had trouble with you now. But I'm going to need to train a lot of bad habits out of you. No need to worry about your fearlessness, though. You got plenty of that in you."

Shiv snarled. He kicked wildly, trying to climb back up to her face. She was around as tall as he was at baseline, but due to his monstrosity, Shiv was practically twice her size. Even so, his weight barely seemed to affect her, and with a casual flick of her foot, she managed to throw him through the air as if he were some kind of insect.

Shiv let out a surprised cry as he sailed through the opening in the cube that he and the other prisoners were trying to escape through earlier. As he crashed against the ground, a miserable scream escaped from his throat as every single burn on his body came ablaze in unison. Shiv didn't know how long he writhed on the ground or how he maintained his consciousness.

What brought him back to coherence was Adam. The Gate Lord was whimpering. Shiv followed the pitiful noises to the man himself and let out a gasp of horror as he caught sight of Adam. He was curled in on himself like a ball. Shiv could see countless burns and exposed sinews through patches of missing flesh lining the Gate Lord's body.

Shiv grunted. He tried crawling toward his friend, but his body wouldn't obey. Shiv was about as broken as Adam was, perhaps even more so. It wasn't a matter of pain tolerance anymore. His muscles simply wouldn't function. His bones were a map of drifting shrapnel inside a bag of leaking meat. So Shiv didn't use his body to move. Instead, he projected his Vitae. He extended strands of white and red and pressed them against Adam.

At his touch, Adam stilled and managed to lift his head ever so slightly. The Gate Lord's blue eyes were filled with such pain that Shiv looked away.

"We're ne-never doing this again," Adam whimpered, shuddering with every syllable he forced out. "Bloody hells, you didn't tell me it was going to be this bad. How did you even take this the first time?"

Despite everything, Shiv couldn't help but laugh. "It's not that bad," Shiv said. "You can get used to it… 'cause you'll end up blacking out eventually."

Adam clenched his teeth and tried to stop himself from shaking. Nearby, Shiv could hear Five begging for death as the Deathless sank his Vitae deeper into Adam's soul. He realized that the Gate Lord was charred here as well. He tried cycling Adam's injuries into himself, but then there came a declaration that forced him to stop.

"None of that."

Hearing Veronica's words was like experiencing a new natural law being erected in existence. One moment Shiv could do something, the next it was absolutely impossible, for every part of him fought himself. Something inside Shiv turned sour at the unfairness of it all. Despite every challenge he'd overcome, despite how hard he'd struggled, despite becoming Legendary, he was powerless. Powerless in the face of the Auroral Council, powerless to protect the ones he cared for. To be honest, his life felt like a shitty joke with no punchline right about now.

Adam blinked at Shiv and tried to communicate something through his many gasps of pain. As the Deathless attempted to project his Psychomancy toward him, Veronica called out again. "None of that, either."

Another natural law was driven down upon Shiv's soul like a spike: one that forbade him from using any magic at all. Physically crippled, spiritually compromised, and mentally shackled, Shiv's mind whirled for anything, anything he could do at all. And just then, he managed to activate Non-Sequitur once more, but it was a futile action.

As he snapped free from his body, he found his Vitae as wounded as his flesh, and he only managed to writhe across the ground, flinching in pain with every centimeter he moved. Even parted from his body, he could still feel Veronica's words nested in a place deeper than his bones. He couldn't reach out to Adam using his Psychomancy. He couldn't try to fix him using his Vitae, and he couldn't escape, not in his current state. Shiv had no options at all. All he had now was a temporary distraction he couldn't exploit.

Veronica slipped past the threshold of the cube. Plates of metal were bent along the edges, and they vanished behind a veil of static darkness as the Councilwoman came to claim her prize. She walked toward Shiv, and her shroud of protective Dimensionality billowed as if it was a grand dress. "It was a good try at an escape," she said, "but this outcome was inevitable once I returned." She wrinkled her nose and glared at the other Avatars behind her.

Shiv's eyes were blurry from the pain, but he could see Stormhalt hovering in the crawlspace, black lightning spilling free from him. There was also another one of Daughter's avatars, a few he couldn't recognize, and finally, a large rectangular automaton that might've been Cripple's.

Shiv's mind ground to a halt. Cripple! Fucking help me, godsdammit! Do something! Anything! It took a lot to make Shiv desperate enough to beg for aid, but he was well past that point. There was nothing he had left. Nothing he could do to stop Veronica from taking him and everyone else as prisoners once more.

The woman in question cocked her head and looked down at Shiv. Unbeknownst to her, his true self wasn't nested in his body anymore. Instead, he was a few centimeters away, pressed up against Adam.

"You have a Master-Tier Psychology skill, don't you?" When Shiv didn't say anything, she kept going. "I can tell. That was the thing I had to struggle against the most, aside from your Magical Resistance. But even without Kathereine, I fear this wasn't an even engagement. My main Legendary Skill is multifaceted, even more so than yours. Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides is a three-skill fusion, according to my knowledge. Mine is made up of six. And it's not nearly the only Legendary Skill I have."

Part of Shiv was tempted to tell the Legend to go fuck herself one final time, but through a maelstrom of pain, a thought occurred to him. There was one skill that could still help him, but there was no guarantee it wouldn't be compromised soon due to the Animancy affecting his soul. Preparing for his vitality to drop dangerously low, Shiv reached inward and began constructing a golem. But it wasn't just any golem.

Animated Skill Infusion: Shadows of Futures Coming

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