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DRR Book 4, Chapter 46 — Beat 'Em Up
🕑 Added 2025-05-31 15:12:00 +0000 UTCThere's a fun little trick Guard and I have learned about our respective abilities—specifically, in my ability to Anchor and in the chains he likes to use. It's a sort of intrinsic synergy, something we encountered while we were sparring in the Grove. For one reason or another, his chains are able to carry the force of my Anchoring. It isn't as flexible as if I were to do it, but it's very capable of locking something in place. Reinforcing it against something else, as it were.
Given how much of Teluwat's fighting strategy appears to revolve around turning the entirety of his lair against us, this turns out to be an incredibly useful synergistic property.
Every time Teluwat tries to warp the walls around us to crush us, Guard simply slams a new chain into the stone and freezes it in place. Teluwat sends out the occasional probing skill, hoping to Assimilate either Guard or I, but my Anchor counters him completely. As long as I'm here, he can't.
And so he grows increasingly desperate.
He's leading us somewhere, I'm pretty sure. His disembodied core ducks and weaves between the halls of his castle, occasionally merging with the stone so he can throw another pillar of stone at us or try to cut us off.
Problem is, he's exhausted, and we both know it. He's spent several loops fighting off the power of the resets, then the power of a second-layer He-Who-Guards, then Ghost, Lilia, and Versa all at once. He's had very little time to rest and recuperate between those battles.
Neither have I, to be fair, but I was able to replenish my reserves while Virin was busy making modifications to the teleport stone. I'm not at full capacity, but I'm not nearly as drained as Teluwat is. Not that the fight would have gone very differently if we'd both been at full strength: my Talent seems to counter Teluwat's entirely. If he'd had more time to prepare, perhaps, or if he'd been able to undermine Guard the way he planned, it would have gone differently.
As it stands, it's only a matter of time.
He ducks into a different room, and there's a clattering of bone as he begins to infuse a new body for himself; I narrow my eyes, holding a hand out to stop Guard from storming straight in. Slime begins to build into a new, haphazard form, this one distinctly less humanoid and more... feral, for lack of a better term. He snaps at us, splattering acidic goo all over the walls that almost immediately begin to melt into the stone.
That's not the reason I stopped Guard, though. It's the bones he's using this time. Every one of those bones are imbued with Firmament—skill imbuements, if I had to guess. Dangerous ones.
"Be careful," I say, though the warning isn't exactly necessary. Guard just nods, tension thrumming through his frame.
Inspired Evolution: Knight.
I can feel how startled Teluwat is as my bones emerge and turn into armor. He tries to stop me by firing off one of his new skills, pouring Firmament into a rib that glows a sickly yellow-blue before firing out a thin tendril that curves through the air toward me. Guard stares intently at the bone, then manifests a skill circuit that draws in the tendril before it can reach me.
"Those are rather easy to read," he says impassively. I can feel Teluwat's stunned shock. He scrambles for another plan, for another skill, but by that time, I'm done with my transformation.
Force Construct.
Teluwat launches another skill even as the plane of force manifests in the middle of his newest body, almost cutting him in half; he only barely manages to manifest a shockwave to shatter it before it renders his bones unusable. Even before he's done, Guard's summoned a new set of chains that strike toward him like living snakes—he's using them like bludgeons rather than to restrain and contain.
"Enough!" Teluwat snarls. Firmament pulses around him, bright enough to momentarily reveal the shadow of his true self: his core flickers in the center of it all like a purple stain burnt into the fabric of his power. New skills blaze at the edges, each one flickering and unstable, but no less powerful.
They're Assimilated skills, I think. This sort of imbuement should be unstable enough to shatter and cause backlash the same way Soul of Trade was warped by the skill vial she took, but it doesn't seem to affect him. It probably helps that he doesn't have a real body to speak of.
The room fills with toxic power. One skill floods the room with a stinging gas that melts anything it comes into contact with. Another draws all moisture into itself, attempting to dehydrate me. A third is an intense blaze of fire that melts anything it comes into contact with.
Compressive Pulse.
I take all that power he exerts and compress it into a single point.
Teluwat fights me, of course. Taking over another Trialgoer's skills isn't supposed to be that easy—I wouldn't have been able to do this against my mimic, for example, and I doubt I'd be able to do it against any of the Integrators. I'm not sure I'd even be able to do it against any of Teluwat's normal skills.
These aren't his normal skills, though. They don't belong to him. They're imbued into his bones and body, and it's his Firmament powering them, but that slight disparity is enough for me to rip control away from him and force it into a tiny ball of power.
I'd throw it back into his face, but we both know that would do nothing. His physical body is only a medium for him. Instead, I glance at Guard, whose expression is utterly focused; three of his chains hover behind him like tendrils, ready to strike.
I push the Compressive Pulse into the ground, shattering the stone and covering the room in dust. Teluwat flinches at the sound, unable to help himself, and at that exact moment, Guard and I both strike. I reach out to Guard and touch his shoulder, bringing him out of phase with a Phaseslip.
Then three chains whip forward and coil around Teluwat's core before he can slip away again. He jerks, startled, and tries to pull away; I reach out with my own tangle of Chromatic Strings, sapping the Firmament he tries to push into his borrowed skills. "Wait," he says, panicked. "Wait!"
Guard shakes his head. "There cannot be mercy for what you have done," he says quietly. He doesn't sound angry, to my surprise—just resigned. "You would do it again, given the chance."
"You need me to undo it," Teluwat argues. It's the most afraid I've ever heard him. The panic in his voice is raw and real. "You need me!"
"I do not," Guard says. He turns to me for a moment, as if waiting to see if I'll stop him, but I say nothing. "You have stolen too much from my family already. This ends now."
"I—I know Kauku's plans!" Teluwat says, desperate. "I can tell you what they are!"
"We already know what he's planning," I say. Teluwat snarls. He reaches out again with Assimilation, wielding it this time like a hammer, attempting to realign both Guard and I to become his servants. It's a last-ditch attempt that might have worked if not for my own Talent countering his.
I Anchor us in place, and the Assimilation shatters like glass. He gasps, sounding almost wounded; the failed attempt seems to have taken something vital out of him. I remember being warned about this. If I attempt to Anchor a change, I essentially pit myself against the Truth of the world, and if I fail, it's going to be something inside me that shatters instead of the world.
Seems like the same is true for Assimilation. There's a jagged crack in his core even before Guard exerts any pressure on it.
"Filian," Teluwat gasps. Guard and I both turn, startled, to find a silverwisp standing at the doorway. He's clearly trembling. "Help me. Help your father."
The silverwisp takes a deep breath, then speaks in a small, clear voice. "My name's Harmony. And you're not my father."
Something inside Guard seems to soften. Relief flows through the bond between us—relief and determination. Guard turns to Teluwat. "This ends here," he proclaims. "You will hurt no one else with your schemes."
He yanks on the chains. Teluwat screams for a moment, resisting; the castle's walls reverberate around us—
—and then he shatters.
[You have defeated Teluwat, Heir of Propagation! +1,092 Physical pool points. +1,772 Astral pool points. +992 Firmament credits.]
A massive pulse of change ripples out of Teluwat's broken soul, sending all of us stumbling back. The walls of his lair begin to ripple and undulate, then shift backward, like a hundred years of slow changes are being carefully undone. It's more than I could have hoped for—I'd been worried I would need to find a way to undo everything he's changed, but it looks like all those Assimilations were tied deep within his core.
The walls shrink. The massive buildings of Palus begin to distort, folding back in on themselves until they're nothing more than simple huts built into the swamp. We find ourselves standing in a muddy swamp, the gentle pitter-patter of rain falling all around us.
Standing not too far away is everyone else. Ahkelios, Gheraa, Versa, Ghost, and Lilia, each one looking a little bewildered at the fact that they're suddenly standing in the middle of a swamp. Teluwat's hundreds of agents and experiments have all collapsed into the mud, slowly changing back into their previous forms and selves.
It takes a moment before everyone realizes that about half of them have landed face-first in the mud, and there's a mad scramble to flip them back upright before they drown.
Meanwhile, Guard clutches Harmony in his arms. The younger silverwisp collapsed with all the others, though unlike them he was caught before he hit the mud. "I remember now," Guard says quietly. "Everything we lost. Everything Teluwat stole from us."
"Good," I say. "I was hoping... I mean, yeah. Good."
There's not much for me to say. I let him have his moment—he's being reunited with a son he didn't even know he had, after all—and make my way toward Teluwat's core instead.
It's the first time we've killed a Trialgoer this powerful. Ahkelios mentioned something about this, I think, or at least his Remnant did; a fourth-layer practitioner and above is supposed to leave behind something when they die. But Teluwat wasn't a fourth-layer practitioner, was he? At most, he was a third-layer, like me. Maybe something about Talents change that?
There is something strange about his core, now that I'm examining it more closely. There's no hint of the life that once animated Teluwat, but there's something within it holding the shattered pieces of his core together. Something that isn't quite a Truth and isn't quite a Concept.
The realization hits me: I'm looking at a Talent.
And almost the exact same moment it does, a crushing, roaring pressure manifests all around us.
Ahkelios, Versa, and Guard all collapse, though Guard manages to stay on his hands and knees, crawling over his son to protect him. Ghost and Lilia instantly vanish, the force disrupting their Firmament enough to make them demanifest. Gheraa cries out and flickers strangely, his right hand flickering more rapidly than everything else.
I'm forced down to a knee, and I grit my teeth, pushing against it.
I should be surprised. I should be asking myself what this is. But the truth is that there's a familiarity to it that tells me everything I need to know. The final pieces of a puzzle I hadn't known I needed to solve click together, even as I push against this just enough to look up.
Kauku stands nearby, right next to Teluwat's shattered core. He seems to sense me looking at him—he glances over at me, one brow ridge on his skeletal helmet arcing upward in surprise. "You're almost standing," he says. "I'm impressed. I was half expecting this to kill you, to be honest."
I try to speak, but the pressure forces all that air out of my lungs. Instead, I stagger forward by half a step, fists clenched as I feel that pressure increase around me.
"You're going to kill yourself if you try to get closer," Kauku says, sounding almost bored. "But by all means, go ahead. It'll make things much easier for me. I still can't just kill you, would you believe that?"
He flicks a finger toward me, but a barrier of black Firmament manifests in front of his finger, and whatever he tries to do bounces off it harmlessly. He sighs. "Sometimes I annoy myself with how good I am," he mutters. He grabs the remains of Teluwat's core in one hand, then waves me away with the other. "That said, it does seem like I could kill you this way... the seal doesn't stop me from doing that. Isn't that interesting? All I have to do is increase the pressure—"
Eternal Moment.
I can't get closer to him. We need to escape, and there's only one place we can go that I think he might not be able to follow. Even then, it's just a guess.
I'm surprised the time skill is holding up against him, but it looks like Kauku doesn't have any defenses against Temporal Firmament. That must be why he wants Hestia as much as he does. Even then, though, the drain on my power is immense.
I reach for the Interface and snap open a portal to the Empty City, grabbing and carrying through everyone I can—Ahkelios, Gheraa, Guard, Harmony, and Versa. Eternal Moment is beginning to fail even as I bring Versa through the portal, so I can only hope Kauku isn't cruel enough to kill all of Teluwat's ex-agents.
I don't think he is. He'd excluded them from the original effect, I noticed. But then, how much do I really know him?
The portal snaps shut behind me, shuddering as if also collapsing beneath the weight of Kauku's strength, and I let that Eternal Moment end. It takes me a moment after that to realize that the harsh, haggard rasps I'm hearing is my own breathing, and another one to realize that I'm shaking.
All that, and the best I could do against Kauku was stand? There has to be more I can do. There's a whole phase shift I'm still missing. It'll be a profound change to my power. I'm not sure if it'll be enough, but—
"Ethan," Ahkelios says. I register the fear in his voice and turn to him, already dreading what I'll find.
Guard, Ahkelios, and Versa all stand worriedly around someone. For a second I think it's Harmony, but the silverwisp has been laid gently to the side.
No, the person that's flickering in and out of existence, golden cracks spreading through his skin... is Gheraa.
"What do we do?" Ahkelios asks quietly.
"I don't know," I say. I kneel down beside him, taking a hand carefully into my own—it's flickering more rapidly than the rest of him. Now that I think about it, I remember him hiding his hands behind his back at the beginning of this loop. Opening that Intermediary must have taken more out of him than I realized...
No. That's not it. Or at least, it's not the only reason he's like this. This Gheraa is ultimately a paradox being sustained by Hestia's Heart; he's only able to exist because I resurrect him at some point in the future. With Hestia's Heart no doubt about to be directly under attack and all of Hestia beginning to fall apart, the window of opportunity to bring him back must be closing.
The Empty City is supposed to hold the solution to that, and we're here. But can I trust what Kauku told me about it?
"I believe I might be able to help," a voice says quietly. I blink and look up.
Novi.
She stands there, looking impossibly sad, but... Not about this, I don't think. I remember this look on her before, like she's grieving something that hasn't happened yet.
But right now, Gheraa needs me. I take a deep breath.
"Tell me what to do."
--
Author's Note: Things aren't really going to slow down from here. Time for the endgame. I'll be editing the final arc and then (hopefully) accelerating these chapter releases. :)
Comments
Silver Linings
Nah, not at all. Being perfectly honest, I planned a three-book story initially because the fourth book tends to start to stretch my capacity toward burnout (but then the fourth book wouldn't have been able to fit in the third anyway). At this stage I was struggling even with breaks and editing passes. Went over it a few times to try to deliver the best ending possible, because I *do* really care about making the ending land, buuut there are definitely scenes I wish I'd been able to iterate on more. Doing my editing pass with my editor this week. Hopefully I can muster what I need to rewrite parts of some fights (assuming my editor doesn't kill me, lol)
Digit
Is it bad that I’m a little disappointed with how Teluwat was handled? He was foreshadowed all the way back in book 2 and we’ve only been properly dealing with him in around 15 chapters, as well as him being completely overpowered in the only actual fight he has… I understand why. It’s to show that Ethan is a better “heir” and to show how he’s grown. But I kinda expected a bit more of a clash between the two known holders of talents (other than Kauku) rather than a low diff *hard* counter scenario.
Silver Linings
The titles generally differ slightly from the name of the Talent; this is partly aesthetic (I didn't like the look of "Scion/Heir of Anchoring", so I decided to call back to the original myth) and partly indicative of the role/purpose of the Talent in the formation of Firmament. I think I did change a chapter title to "Scion of Change" a while back, somewhere.
Silver Linings
They can be independent! This ties into wider universe stuff, but the Scion/Heir titles are mostly descriptive; Heirs are just people who happen to unlock the same Talent as their respective Scions.
Melissa Harden
If having one of Kauku's Talents makes Ethan or any other Trialgoers his Heir, dose that means Heirs are locked in to having to gain the rest of Kauku's Talents or can the other Talent developments of Heirs be completely different from eachother and Kauku?
Adamya Gaharwar
Propogation, not assimilation. Does this mean the heir has slightly different abilities to the original? or maybe it means teluwat only unlocked one aspect of the original's power, and so maybe ethan has too (sealing?). or maybe its an editing artefact.
Mr.Turtle
And here I was hoping Ethan would gain a second Talent. Thanks for the chapter!
