186 (III)

Udraal [I]

***

Shiv emerged into another cube. This one wasn't a prison cube, however. There was no valley before him. Instead, there were clean walls, spiraling spells, and a set of open doors arrayed in waves in front of him. He arrived in a teleportation anchor, and it was all he could do to remain standing. Can Hu kept him upright, and the gray-skinned reinforcements dragged Adam and Kura right behind. The others followed, but they were all in bad shape as well.

Helix called aloud for an Animancer, and a few orcs responded. The walls here were lined with gear and equipment—the orcs had been setting up here for a while.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel felling touched they all came for me.

"Nasty couple of days, eh, Shiv?" A massive hand slammed into Shiv's back, and he nearly blacked out from the pain. He gritted his teeth and turned to glare at Mortar, and the automaton-clad orc simply grinned back at him. A rush of anger went through Shiv as he considered throttling the orc, but as his Shapeless Tides cut out again, he realized he needed to focus on what mattered. He needed to fix his soul. He needed to remove the damage the Ascendants inflicted on him. He needed to help Adam, and most importantly, he needed to meet the man who allowed for his escape. Meet the man that Valor warned him about so many days ago.

"Where is he?" Shiv managed to choke out. Before anyone could say anything, a faint blue glow emanated beyond the entrance, and Shiv found himself staggering toward it, brushing off orcs who called after him.

He left the teleportation anchor and turned to his left. There, impaled upon the ground at the center of this guard station's lobby, stood a three-meter-tall banner. It glistened with the colors of Animancy, and mana of all varieties streamed out from the flag fluttering at its tip, dissolving in the air. Yet, there was something else about the shaft. There were faces there, visages of Pathbearers. They tumbled along as if bodies trapped in a cylindrical, recursive river. They kicked, squirmed, and blended with each other, and Shiv felt his insides twist. He couldn't understand what he was looking at, but it felt wrong, felt like an atrocity.

And just then, the banner flared with renewed brightness, and a shape emerged from it.

First came a cloak of Darkness, which soon developed lines of faint blue. At its core, a glint of Necromancy pulsed and settled through the shape, and from that mess of mana emerged a man, dressed in silken robes of dust-gray and midnight. He lifted his head, and Shiv found himself staring at one of the most handsome men he'd ever met. His skin was dark, while white locks glided over his brow and danced behind his shoulders. A thin scar ran along his brow, the only imperfection on an otherwise flawless face. His eyes glowed with the faint blueness of Animancy, and as he moved, his robe glided around him as if a river, and soon it went from fluid to fabric.

Shiv's breath caught inside his chest.

Udraal Thann.

He looked faintly like his father, but only barely, maybe in the eyes and nowhere else. Shiv guessed Udraal took more after his mother, but Valor had spoken little about his love other than the fact that he'd lost her at some point. Rather than glaring at Udraal as if he was something to prey upon, the orcs gave him a wide berth, and Shiv felt fear, thick and dense fear radiating from every gray-skin in the room. But it was not fear offered to him.

"Shiv. Shiv," Adam called out. His voice croaked with pain, and he was borderline delirious. Shiv looked over his shoulder, but then Udraal spoke to him for the first time.

"No, eyes forward. Don't worry about him. Don't split your attention. Not when you can't even secure your own safety. To do so is a fatal mistake. One you cannot afford with me." Udraal sighed. "What has my father been teaching you if you haven't even carved that into your subconscious?"

By the time Shiv looked back to Udraal, the man was standing right in front of him. Udraal was tall, taller than Shiv by a full head. Shiv suspected that wasn't a natural thing. Instead, Udraal was projecting himself to be larger as a means of intimidation. Instead of flinching back, Shiv simply gritted his teeth and sneered. "You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

Udraal squinted his eyes and snorted in dry amusement. "Really? Those are your first words? That's what you want to say to your maker?"

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"I don't really want to say anything to you," Shiv said. "Actually, no, I kind of want to do something." His fists were balled, and he thought about his parents, about the ritual, about what happened to Rose, about his entire life. He wondered who he might be if Udraal hadn't twisted his soul. But if Udraal didn't twist my soul, would I have my Path? Would I even be here? Would I even be myself? Shiv faltered for a moment. But the weight of weariness and faint hatred didn't leave him.

Udraal, comparatively, didn't seem to care at all. If Shiv felt like he was being crushed under the weight of the moment, then Udraal was a feather flying free. He was visiting family, come to see an old acquaintance. Anything aside from facing the sins of his past.

"I must admit, I'm relatively..." Udraal frowned. "I don't know if I'm impressed or disappointed. For one, the experiment has finally borne fruit. You worked. You're worthwhile. One success among so many failures. I checked in on you a few times when you were but a babe. When your Path failed to emerge and there seemed to be nothing special about you, I let you be."

"Let me be," Shiv said. There was a hollowness opening up inside him.

"I expected you to be dead or no one of particular importance by this point, but I suppose some experiments have a late breakthrough." He looked Shiv up and down. "You're a Legend already, then. Hm. The attached Feat is working as well. That is most acceptable. The Tarrasque inherited a version of that. Did you know?"

Shiv didn't answer him.

Udraal narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Yes. Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides. Monster Skill. So the Tarrasque transplantation did work. Interesting." He started circling Shiv as if he were observing a specimen. The Deathless didn't play along. He turned, following Udraal's gaze, but rather than being annoyed, the Abyssal Lord came to a halt.

"Feel free to use violence if you want. I wouldn't be offended. In fact, I think I want to see it. Let's get through the pointless tantrum boiling behind your eyes—"

Udraal's casual provocation of Shiv's rage proved to be a breaking point. The Deathless felt something snap inside of him. After days of struggling against a Tarasque, of high tension, of constant battle, of escaping over and over again, of being pushed to the brink and wounded of soul and body and mind, and facing the Ascendants and now standing before the one who created him, the one that left his life in discord and made him who he was, Shiv's confusion gave birth to rage, and he lost all control.

He slammed into Udraal, picking the man up before he slammed him onto the ground. There was no finesse to his brutality, no coherence to his mind. Shiv screamed as he dropped elbow after elbow, as he broke things inside the Abyssal Lord. Udraal didn't fight back as his arm shattered and his face was caved in.

He hummed through broken teeth and spoke, "Very interesting. I would have expected a calmer demeanor. I wanted you to maintain a stable state of mind, something analytical. For you to have this much rage—"

"Shut the fuck up!" Shiv slammed his fist down three more times, and with the final thrust, his hand went through Udraal's face, and the Abyssal Lord's head splattered apart like a crushed melon.

Shiv knelt there, staring down at a bloodied mess. He looked at his hands. They were shaking.

It couldn't have been that easy. It couldn't... Shiv's lip quivered. He turned to stare at Can Hu, and the Penitent shook its head.

"No."

"What? I didn't… I…"

"I tried the same. You have killed nothing. Neither have I."

The Deathless blinked. "What?"

And just then, the banner planted at the center of the room flared once more, and a new Udraal emerged. This one resembled the one Shiv just killed, and he adjusted his robes. He looked down at his body and shook his head.

"Well, that was to be expected. Well, let's do this a few more times until you finally get it out of your system."

Shiv just stared at Udraal, trying to process how casually the man got over his—

Shit… Is this what it feels like when someone talks to me?

"Hm. Done already?" Udraal lifted an eyebrow. Shiv rose as he summoned his Vitae. Swirling bands of white and red danced along his arm. Udraal's amusement faded slightly. "Oh. How interesting. You've learned to shape it like a mana field. I was wondering how you managed to overcome Sullain." Then the Abyssal Lord's cold, dead-eyed smile returned. "You hurt him quite badly, you know. But you didn't finish him off. He called out to me."

"So, what? You're here to avenge him?" Shiv winced as his Shapeless Tides died once more.

"Oh, no, I'm here for you. And Sullain was a fool to invoke my name. But he will serve as a good lesson."

"Lesson?" Shiv echoed.

"Yes. Your soul is compromised by Animancy. You're going to learn how to fix it. I will not speak to you properly otherwise. I have standards, boy. And so far, my father and Master Arrow have a great deal of explaining to do regarding the lacking state of my experiment."

And at that, the banner flared again, and a new person was pulled into the room. Someone that Shiv had already broken before.

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