Brent Stinebaker
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II-55 Rematch (I)
🕑 Added 2025-01-20 10:15:48 +0000 UTC“Sarah. It happened. Hound came to a bargain with the boy. Yeah. Not sure what deal they made—didn’t think it was a good idea risking my life for a peek.
Well, Wei’s definitely has a connection back to the Final End in himself now.
William’s fine too. They told me the Harbinger offered him a bargain. Yeah. That kind of bargain. Of course he took it—it’s gonna be pretty shit being someone else’s meat-puppet, but what else does he got? What other chance does he have to survive?
No, he’s not doing well. He just got the shit kicked out of him by his wife. Ex is when you divorce—they didn’t divorce, technically, he just killed her ass. Yeah. I’ll keep an eye on him.
Wei? With what he just got, I think he’s going to be just fine. Bloodspawn’s got no idea what’s about to hit ‘em.”
—Telepathic Missive Between John Bishop and Sarah Moonscar
II-55
Rematch (I)
“Wei,” Rafael said, floating over. “Are you all right?”
The lich placed a hand on Wei’s shoulder, and then the young master flinched, almost dazed by what he had experienced. Shaking his head, he found himself surrounded by his other disciples, gazed upon by concerned eyes and worried faces.
“I am, I am…” Wei quivered. He thought of his mother, his father, everything—everything he had suffered.
“We will be fine,” the Shell proclaimed. But for the first time, it lacked true certitude in his voice.
Members of the Drowned Sky Sect were huddled and shivering on the shores. The Hound had released them from their waters at some point, and the majority of everyone was gathered around Ellena, who was currently clinging to her daughter with all she had.
Wei looked away from her — refused to think about her black fate.
“There might still be something we can do,” the Shell whispered. “Perhaps… perhaps we can break the Withering inside of her?”
The Hound said that was the only thing keeping her in the waking world. If she is emptied of his touch, I fear she will just collapse like a lifeless vessel.
“There… there must be something,” the Shell breathed. A growl of anger sounded from the Skill. “There must!”
“Wei?” Agnesia said, looking up at the young master. She looked far more composed than he expected, though there was still a visible lump along her throat. Her hair was gleaming with a fiery, golden aura, and it was only thanks to her unfettered flames that the cold here wasn’t absolutely unbearable. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Ellena turned then, and her bloodshot eyes met Wei’s. He flinched. “I—”
“Come!” A loud voice interrupted the moment. A new glow rose over the curve of the horizon, washing over the Drowned Sky Sect from the ashen heights where the frozen rivers of death tumbled down. A sphere of warmth pierced the atmosphere of draining coldness, and a surge of vitality poured through every living entity. Wei looked over his disciples and beheld a collapse tree tunneling up through the listless clouds above. Branches hale and spreading wood lined with leaves of emerald bright continued to crawl upward. From between the cracks lining its bark, an inviting hue called to the survivors. “Come to me. We must leave.”
Wei recognized that voice. It was the Bastard’s sister—Mourning. Wasn’t she in his blade?
He hesitated only for a moment before he looked to his people. “We must leave. Gather yourselves. We cannot stay here. We cannot.”
Not a moment after he said those words did the air around him get colder, did the creeping breath of the abyss behind him slowly began to bubble over the edge of the cliff. They weren’t meant to stay here. Perhaps Trespassers could survive, but the most of his companions were Fictionals.
There was no time to tarry.
Hushed murmurs and crunching footsteps became the ambient hymn of their march. Wei spread his Omniscience wider, but caught no trace of his father, or Bishop, or even Mepheleon for that matter. For now, though, he no longer cared. That was something for later—if he managed to survive what was to come.
“Come to me,” Mourning cried again. The tube-shaped trunk of the tree rose like a massive pillar, large enough to accommodate hundreds, and at its core, a small hollow opened at its core, and from within came a glinting light that blinded even Wei’s Omniscience. “I will return you to where I remain, to where my brother suffers, encase in the frost of the end. Prepare yourselves. The battle is not over.”
They reached the Tree of Life with all the haste they could muster. With each step, the disciples grew healthier, stronger, quicker. So close to the tree, the Essence of Life was like an inferno amidst a blizzard, offering much desired succor. The entirety of the Drowned Sky Sect poured into the hollow, but as they arrived, Wei came to a brief halt.
He beheld what glowed at the center of the tree—what blinded him earlier.
It was the body of the Bastard frozen with a blade. A blade that possessed an edge forged from deathly frost, but a hilt that became the source of all wood and life. An interplay of clashing powers flowed between blade and hilt, but as Wei’s gaze slipped upward, he looked up to see a woman covered in a dress made from flowers and nettled briars. She was encased in the ceiling of the hollow, and with every twitch of her fingers, the great tree they resided within grew and changed.
“Welcome, Wei An Wei,” Mourning said. She was beautiful. Uncannily so. Inhumanly so. Her cheeks were impossibly angular and there wasn’t an inch of fat on her body. Yet, she didn’t seem gaunt either. Rather, it seemed like this was the nature state her body should be in. She didn’t so much have skin as she did a thin sheen of plant matter. Dewdrops lined her features further, giving her a glistening gleam in the light. “It is good to finally greet you, spirit to spirit.”
Wei blinked. From the back, he felt Garrent squint and mutter: “The fuck are her nipples?” before Mira smacked him over the back of the head.
“Mourning,” Wei said. “Is this… the inner realm of your blade.”
“You may think of it that way. But in truth, it is more a prison. I will tell you this tale another time, however. Our moment is short. We will be returning to the waking world where my brother was struck down. The Bloodspawn await, and I fear their numbers have only swelled while we were trapped in this place.”
Wei summoned his Form of the Withering Harvester in response. “Good. I’ve been looking forward to this.” And it would help him take his mind off his mother, off everything he just experienced.
Several curses and gasps sounded around him. Rafael leaned in close. “Where did you—”
“You… you're the reason I feel lighter than before, why I’ve grown stronger…” Mourning breathed. The wood around him cracked and sprouted waterfalls of flowers. “You accepted a bargain with the Hound of the Withered Moon.”
Wei didn’t see a point in hiding it. “Yes. To our mutual benefit.”
“There is no mutual benefit with death, Wei. You have no idea what you have done, you have—”
The sound of fracturing glass cut into their conversation. The blade that encased the Bastard spiderweb with fractures as the Scion of Death’s eyes shot open.
“We must be away. Now! Has anyone been left behind?”
“No,” Wei replied.
Then, suddenly, the hollow’s opening sealed shut behind a latch of vines. “Then we rise.”
A lurch of gravity pulled at Wei’s stomach as he felt them ascend. They were being drawn into the lifeless clouds, through the threshold of this wintry realm of misery and death, and back. Back to a crystalline fracture in the sky where a mirror of the Scion’s body struggled to break free, encased in ice.
Wei blinked. “Wait. We are literally going to emerge out from the Bastard?”
“Yes. You will be unleashed with all the excess Gravechill he has been storing in his spirit. Understand that this is an unprecedented moment. The Hound… they should not be able to relinquish lives like they just did. But you broke the anchor…”
The frozen slab holding Death’s bastard broke for both of the version of him that was right before the group, and that mirrored copy that existed in the crevice lining the sky. Shattered shards of life-devouring frost clattered across the ground, and the Bastard reached out with a shaking hand, grasping wildly, trying to pry himself free.
“Fuck,” the Bastard growled. He let out a pained hiss as he continued to struggle. His muscles were twitching from weakness and a layer of death-frost coated his bare arms, lining him in protective armor.
Wei wasted no time. He strode forth and took the Bastard by the hand. The Scion of Death gasped in surprise before his gaze met Wei’s. For a moment, both of them froze. The Bastard’s expression faltered and flagged. “I’m… sorry… Didn’t want this.”
The young master didn’t reply with words. Instead, he pulled hard. More of the frost clutching the Bastard broke. But not enough. He pulled again. The Bastard pried. Then came a stream of fire, Agnesia joining the effort.
The Gravechill melted. The frosted tomb turned to slurry as the Bastard toppled through what remained of his cage. His considerable bulk never doubled over on Wei, and the Bastard wheezed and coughed, trying to stay upright.
“It is well. I have you. I have you.”
The Bastard gripped Wei by the shoulder. “I… I know…”
“It will not be long now,” Mourning said. True to her word, the highest branches of the tree were prying into the fracture, making it wider. “Ready yourselves. I will do what I can to heal all of you when the time comes, but…”
“Disciples!” Wei cried. “Those with the lowest Constitution are to gather with the Oathbearers and Rafaels. Prepare whatever fortifications and ciphers you can. The rest of you take formations. Unleash all your skills at once. Agnesia—give me a wall of flames. Deny our enemies an easy approach.”
“Got it,” she said.
Already, they were doing better than ever before. There was no true substitute than dancing the edge of death over and over.
“Bastard,” Wei said, his voice low. “Vendrian? Are you alright? Can you stand.”
Slowly, shakily, the Bastard pushed himself off Wei and offered a weary nod. “Yeah… Yeah.”
“Good. Our arrangement is still on. Don’t use your weakness as an excuse when you earn the title of being a female dog.”
Despite everything, the Bastard cracked a beleaguered smile. “You little shit.”
They were close now. Mere moments away from entering the crevice. Drawing a stabilizing breath, Wei cleared his mind, and did one final thing.
System Updating…
Refining Source
>>>Source Refined: [700/700] Lumens
Source Core Ascended > Lv. 31
>[32/100] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension
>>[1/30] Core Ascensions to [Gate] 3 System Ascension
>>>Source: [700/700] Lumens
Expertise Demonstrated
>Meditation (IV) +
>Unarmed Combat (IV) +
>Spearmanship (IV) +
>Evasion (V) +
>Thrown Weapons (III) +
>Tactics (IV) +
>Rapier +
Sourcery Advancements [3] Available!
Select [10]
Source Propagation — Allows the host to channel Source out from their body and unravel the stability of the physical matter around them. The more Source is sacrificed, the more the world unravels.
Liminal Bridge > Liminal Tunnel [Requires 25 Sourcery Advancements (Currently at 19)
***
The Souldrinker had been close—so close to seeing the fight done. Even now, the Dying Queen’s words whispered in the back of its mind. “Find them, my child, my creation. Find them, find them, and finish this. Find them, and bring me the Concept Breaker.” Over and over again, her words became more than just words, a litany. An oath, an absolute truth.
Through it all, the Souldrinker spawned more and more of lesser kindred. They scoured every inch of the sanctuary, draining away all the existing Blood Essence granted to them by the Dying Queen. Yet, at the moment of their victory, as their enemies fell and were struck down when this Souldrinker was summoned by its progenitor…
In the place where the Death Bastard used to be was a cracking crevice created from a twisted trunk of gnarled wood. Though some of the spawn tried to tear into it, pierce their way through, they found themselves unable. Even the Soul Drinker itself could not pry its own substance open, despite possessing immense strength. But then came a change—a shiver, a shudder. Some of the wood was crackling. Green light slowly dimmed as frost and other essences began to pour through.
“They are returning,” the Dying Queen whispered. “Ready yourself. Finish this. Do as you are commanded.”
“Yes, mother.” This old drinker’s thoughts resonated through all the other spawn as well. They were not just themselves. They were each other. They were the Dying Queen. Joined by blood, bound by blood, made one by blood — Family eternal.
The spawn massed themselves around the point at which their adversaries would return. Parts of the wood began to hatch like a cocoon about to birth a butterfly, yet the poor creature that would soon spawn would meet its demise. The Soul Drinker drew close, flexing its wings and channeling its portals to a realm of devastation, of lightning, of raging waters, of sour flames. As soon as they arrived, it would unleash every ounce of essence it had and bring this travesty to a close.
Yet, it was the Souldrinker that was caught unprepared, for the moment the crevice shattered, the moment the spawn surged in for the kill, the moment a plethora of destructive energies spewed forth from the Souldrinker’s wings, space itself shuddered as a corrosive slash destroyed the very concept of distance.
A black, ugly slash that preceded the Concept-Breaker’s arrival.
The Souldrinker turned, turning its destructive powers upward. But even as streams of acid, fire, water, and blood intermingled, they proved wanting as Wei An Wei cut again. A new slice marred the world, and it glided through the Souldrinker’s attacks, through its concentration of Essence, and splashed against its shell in a whip of soul-chilling cold. A cold so close to the end that even the Dying Queen flinched away from its corruption.
You have received Source Withering.
A flash of light and darkness erupted against the Souldrinker’s body. A being armored from Source and hefting a black-edged scythe that reeked of the Final End.
“What is this…” the Dying Queen whispered. “How could… the Hound… but why? Why?” Her outrage was so loud it reverberated through the wing-portals of the Souldrinker. “Why?”
The enemy gave no response. Instead, he flared his own wings in response, and came for the Souldrinker, coming forward as an inexorable harbinger of death.
But there was no death for those who were embraced. No end. The Queen was. So they were.
“Seize him,” the Dying Queen said, pouring more power across. Blood swelled from the Dying Queen’s court, and the Souldrinker felt its Essence spike–
Until it suddenly halted.
Then, there was another presence in its being—an intruder.
“Ah, Vanessa! It’s been so long. Well, I suppose that’s a lie. You’ve been very naughty about reaching into my realm recently.”
A coldness sang out from the queen. “Harbinger.”
Comments
Dar-Angol
Yeah,ur good kid but you really need step it up on the chapter length, even IF it takes longer,have you ever heard the old bull/ young bull joke!??" The 2 we're at the top of the hill there were 30 young cows in the pasture,the young bull said,hey pops imma run down n get me one of those,the old man said No Son, were gonna walk down and fuckem All!!"
Brent Stinebaker
New godclads chapter coming in a bit
