272 (II)

  Liberation [II]

  Solzimort clicked his rows of serried teeth together a final time. He laid his many heads down along the ground before curling into a giant ball around himself. In less than a second, he let out a unified exhalation that made his body swell. Then, as he breathed in, a loud, piercing snore filled the room. Adam winced and rubbed his right ear. The Culturist shared a similar reaction, to Shiv's surprise.

  A similar Awareness skill to Adam? Shiv thought to himself.

  While Solzimort slumbered, Hymn continued shaping more Psychomancy spells. Over a hundred symbols bubbled into the air, formed by translucent mana. They connected to each other along faint trails and promptly divided themselves into three separate tracks. These three tracks formed interlocking axes with each other. Specific spells were used as connectors, intersection points for each of the tracks, and they began to revolve around each other, with Solzimort resting at their epicenter.

  With classes delayed, Shiv decided that he didn't want to waste this opportunity. He used his Bifurcated Processing to take in almost everything the Headmaster was doing. His mind heated up immediately. It went from a cool hum to a boiling scream as a deluge of information flooded his awareness. His Memory skill began climbing as well, and soon it felt like he had a furnace inside of his skull rather than a biological organ.

  Magical Theory 1 > 3

  Memorization 18 > 20

  Bifurcated Processing 64 > 65

  Shiv specifically noted the spells serving as junctions between the axes. They all had the same shape, the same look, a sort of soft cross design. As he observed the spells, he also realized just how incredibly skilled Hymn was. The entire spell was shaped in less than a second, with barely any effort at all. He didn't even wave his hands. He just glanced once and then looked away.

  Psychomancy mana congealed around Solzimort, and the Hydra's snores suddenly cut out. Shiv took a step forward, but then a beam of unnatural color erupted from one of the Hydra's eyes. It was a beam that almost seemed green, almost corroded the world like Necromancy, but it was more swamp-like in function. It stained the world. It created boils that popped and burst, spreading out of the suddenly awakened Hydra like an expanding rash.

  Yet it stopped dead before it could get far. Hymn and the Culturist both held their hands out, and their digits glowed bright, bearing the very same swamp-like viridescence unleashed by the Hydra.

  At once, they pushed the unnatural mana back into Solzimort. The Hydra spasmed and then went stiff as a waterfall of translucence slammed down upon him. Solzimort's single, awakened head, the third one from the very left of its body, crashed down and gave a desperate groan. Despite all his power, despite his Legendary status, it was clear that Solzimort had no ability to resist two rival Legends.

  The Hydra managed a final spasm before his struggles ceased. His body relaxed. His single awakened head, still oozing with eldritch mana, went still as well. The head's eyes remained open, and staring into them, Shiv could feel a baleful presence glaring back, a hidden adversary pouring their hate into him.

  Shiv remembered those eyes. Remembered those eyes gliding along the Recollector's body. Remembered them disappearing into the vortex at the very center of the Recollector’s palm.

  The Culturist joined Hymn as they examined the downed Hydra. "How unexpected. Do you see? Embedded within that head’s brain matter, there's something there. A magical transplant."

  The Headmaster made a hooking motion with a single finger. A burst of black static danced around his hands, and suddenly something appeared atop his palm. It hovered there and resembled a shard that was lined with red, blinking eyes, a shard that radiated with the Stranger's energies.

  "Well, this has Maiden's name written all over it." Hymn sighed. With a flick of his hand, he dismissed the shard, returning it to where it resided within Solzimort’s head.

  "Why the hells did you do that?" Shiv asked. "Take it out. If that's what's corrupting Solzimort—"

  "It's not," Hymn explained. "It's more like a focus crystal for Outsider energies. In fact, that's exactly what it is. It's a synthetic piece of focus crystal, but specifically meant to channel eldritch Mana. It was embedded inside the Hydra as a sort of booster. And that head there, that's the single compromised mind."

  Shiv scowled. "Can you cut it off? If you remove it, maybe we can save the rest of him. Disconnect the Outside from doing… whatever the hells it's doing to him.”

  "Oh no, we can do far, far more than that. Our Hydra effectively has two selves, and one is almost entirely dedicated to serving as an Outsider conduit. But first, a lecture: Everyone is lying to you, boy, and you should assume nothing. This happened because you underestimated the Hydra. Moreover, its Charm skill made you regard it as some kind of lost puppy. I know this because I am overcome by the urge to adopt it even now. And if it can affect me, you were likely compromised from the start."

  Hymn delivered a beam of Psychomantic Mana into Solzimort's corrupted head. The Headmaster scoffed to himself. "And this is why you don't make artificial Seekers. They don't function right. You can't engineer an insanity-immune mind. It's not a problem with intelligence but existence. We live under the mandate of patterns. Gravity affects us. Time affects us. Space affects us. We live in relative existence to other things. The eldritch sometimes don't regard those rules, and before the System touched them and ruined everything, they didn't obey those rules at all."

  He walked up to the Hydra and placed a palm atop its corrupted head. Mana shifted between them. A kaleidoscope of color spilled and cleaved through the room. Each one slammed into Shiv. Each one was like a strong gust of wind, blasting against his Magical Resistance. But after that, Solzimort stabilized. His Eldritch glow vanished, and his corrupted head went dormant as his eyes grew dim while his expression turned vacant. It was like Solzimort's consciousness and subconsciousness had been turned off altogether.

  "Alright, my updated suspicion about this Hydra. It was captured before it fully awoke; it was deliberately taught and trained to develop certain skills. When it failed to become a proper Avatar for Enoch, Maiden decided to continue the project in a new direction. She made an eldritch-focusing crystal, embedded it within the Hydra's head, exposed it to eldritch mana, and when it finally got noticed, she tried to use it to entrap parts of a Fingerling. This likely drew the Stranger's attention, and he rendered the subconscious mind compromised. Maiden decided to counter this by creating two egos for the Hydra. Its first intellect was separated from the others, while the other heads were deliberately brain-damaged to create a creature that was both simple and compliant."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The Culturist glowered in contempt. "Recruiting this Hydra into your escape attempt was very sloppy work."

  Shiv grimaced. "Listen, the Ascendants were coming for us, and the prison was falling apart. We didn't—"

  The Culturist interrupted Shiv. "I was not speaking to you, Deathless. You are not the one to blame here. You do not have the experience nor the skills. Educator. I must say I expected more from a fallen god. I would suspect this was part of Udraal's machinations, except for the fact that I know He Who Walks Beyond despises the Outside."

  Maia’s lip curled in a venomous sneer. "Your judgment means nothing to me, orc. I secured what I had to, to ensure our escape. And if this thing was to turn against us, I would have seen it subdued."

  "But not before he notified the Stranger about everything we were planning and our impending assault." Hymn let out a weary breath. "Is ensuring that we become as lambs to the slaughter part of your strategy?"

  When the Educator didn't reply, the Headmaster returned his attention to the Hydra. "But not all is lost. I think we can use this. In fact, it still thinks it's awake. It thinks it's fighting us right now. And so the Stranger likely does as well."

  "And why does it think that?" Shiv asked.

  "Because I'm feeding false scenes and memories into its mind," Hymn replied succinctly. "I will continue with this deception. The Stranger might know we're coming, but he doesn't need to know when exactly we are coming. I will convince the Outsider God that our arrival is delayed, that there are problems with the obelisk, and that we're having a difficult time pinning the Hydra down. I suspect this will provoke him to throw all his forces into taking Blackedge prematurely, and that might give us the advantage of surprise."

  "Enchanter Merrielmel," the Headmaster called out, "please continue with your dimensional calibrations. A set of wards and barriers have been placed around the Gateway above so no one should be able to see what's happening. Young Lord Arrow, dimensional pathway, if you will. I think it's time for you and yours to head across into the Tutorial and gather your army. I’ll be with you in a minute after I’m finished with Solzimort here. And do make it fast; time has never been our ally, but the fate of Blackedge is burning down to the wick.”

  And at that, the obelisk let out an ominous droning noise. A blast of Dimensionality surged upward as the twin diffusers flanking the pillar-sized construct flared bright with blinding white colors. A prismatic display followed as a cycling of mana took place. And just then, Shiv caught a flicker, a glimpse into the Outside. The obelisk became as if a chasm, a crack between places, and Shiv beheld thousands upon thousands of orcs gathered across a wasteland.

  "It's working," Merrielmel cried aloud. "I think... I think it's working. The mana frequency—the gateway slotted between Gate Piety and the Tutorial—I'm attuning it to the Gateway above."

  "Hey, Adam," Shiv grunted. "You think that's going to be our ugly surprise for this fight?"

  "The only one? I felling doubt it."

  "Me too. Let’s go see what other horseshit the System throws our way. Let’s go get our orc army and shit on some Outsider corpses.”

  ***

  “INSUL!”

  “INSUL!”

  “INSUL!”

  An entire wasteland of orcs cheered and clamored for Shiv as he stepped through the Gateway. A shroud of churning darkness, protected the dimensional passage nested at the center of Phoenix Academy. With classes temporarily on hold due to hostilities between the noble Houses and a series of wards put in place, no one in the Republic knew what was transpiring, the extreme danger that they now faced, of the direct connection between the homeworld of the orcs and the very capital of the Yellowstone Republic.

  Though the Ascendants were powerful, though the Republic's capital was advanced, though the Prismatic Guard's Polymagi were impressive in their cohesion and flexibility, Shiv was transfixed as he stared beyond the horizon—stared on, and used his Atlases of the Flesh-Scryer to glimpse even more biological signatures leagues beyond. There were more orcs than he could possibly count, even with Bifurcated Processing. Orcs that stretched past where this world began to bend. Orcs that far exceeded his field of vision.

  If they all decided to disobey him at once, decided to make him abdicate charge and seize the Republic for themselves…

  Shiv didn't know if they could succeed. He wasn't sure, but he knew this: they would deal catastrophic damage, and millions would die. At the very least.

  "I forgot how bloody popular you are here," Adam whispered from behind Shiv. “How are there even more of them here now?”

  And he wasn't the only one unnerved by the gray horde. "Holy fucking shit," Jessica muttered. Rusty was clenched tight in her hand, and she stared at Courtney, the Court Leviathan, as a host of orc Biomancers flew it closer to the Gateway. Atop the leviathan, twenty dark leotard and bunny ear wearing orcs did what Shiv could only describe as a sarcastic but impeccably coordinated dance routine. "Holy fucking shit," she repeated once again. "Holy fucking shit," she said for a third time. "Goddammit, kid. Goddammit. Is it too late for me to back out of this now? You said you were going to recruit some orcs to fight for you. When you said that, I didn't expect half a world of orcs to join in on this brawl."

  "We're going to need them where we're going," Shiv said.

  He shot the Culturist a look, but the Legendary orc simply bowed his head. "They're here for you. They want to share in your flame, and they want to—"

  They were interrupted as a singular climbed up the stone steps leading to the dais on which the Gateway stood. "Took you long enough to get back to us, Insul. Where are we going? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just get going. Got to get my swings in so I can get back to being a Hero again."

  The two-and-a-half-meter-tall orc that came to a stop in front of Shiv shouldered a long, rusted metal club and wore little more than a loincloth. His face, however, was cracked apart in the widest grin Shiv had ever seen. And despite everything the orcs had done to Shiv, despite his ugly experience meeting the Culturist, the Deathless couldn't stop himself from smiling in turn.

  "Bonk, you son of a bitch. I see you shrank since I last saw you."

  Bonk tilted his head and looked Shiv up and down. "And you look like you got a little fatter, Insul. You look a little sadder, too. Did you miss me that much? No one else hits you like I can?"

  The orc reached raised his free hand, and Shiv reciprocated. Their hands slammed together, and a small sonic boom shook the air between them. In the corner of Shiv’s left eye, he could see Helix seething with jealousy, leaning in further to scowl at Bonk.

  The loincloth-wearing orc tried wrestling with Shiv, but he was far diminished, barely more than an Adept now, the cost of death weighing high upon his soul. He retained his memories, but nothing else, and Shiv felt more than a little guilty about that. "Listen, Bonk. The prison. I, uh—"

  "What, you feel bad I died there, and you want to thank me now?" Bonk's smile grew wider.

  Shiv barely stopped himself from sighing. "It's that obvious?"

  "You know, sometimes you're really like us, and then other times you're all too human." The orc winked at him. "It was a good run, a real fun run. One of my best. I don't regret anything. All the other boys here nearly went from gray to green when they heard I got to shit in the Ascendants’ breakfast. And now they all want a part of the action. And so do the other Returners like me."

  And despite all the dangers the Orcs posed, there were times Shiv couldn't deny the benefits of having an army such as this one. "Well, you tell them that they're welcome. Hells, you're welcome. But where we're going, you might not be able to hold on to this life for long either."

  "That's fine. We've just got to keep flipping the coin until it lands on its edge. Besides, I've never been to the Outside before. I think it'll be interesting, fighting there. Say, how many whacks do you think an Outsider Deity can take?"

  "I think it depends on what you're hitting and where. If shit goes poorly, you might just find out firsthand.” Shiv paused. “And shit always goes poorly with me.”

  Bonk laughed. Shiv laughed. Five coughed. “Is it just me, or is that a First Blood Court Leviathan? And is it getting closer?”

  “Yeah,” Shiv said. “That’s Courtney. And I think that’s what we’re going to use to get everyone in Blackedge out.”

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