Hunger: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 3), page 82
Where are you? Felix's senses quested within the Ravager King as it spoke to him, born along the tides of the blue-white array he'd laid out before. A Seeking Array, they called them, a relatively simple array meant for finding certain objects. Deep below, it delved, questing inside the mountainous dragon's Body. He just hoped it would work.
Something stirred inside the Ravager, and with a lurch of fear and hope, it felt deadly familiar.
"Do you wish to join Us as well, Vessel?" The Ravager King asked. "Your services cannot be underappreciated, not by Us. You may join Our grand being and survive to see Us reestablish the proper order in your world. You do not deserve the fate of lesser prey."
"Prey?" Felix asked, less than idly. "Who do you consider prey?"
"Everyone, Vessel. Everyone."
Felix blanched and glanced over the side of the Ravager.
"Yes," it rumbled, a pleased, hungry mountain. "Them, too. The first of many, thanks to my Father. And to you."
Great. Felix swallowed then grimaced as he felt a sharp tug at his Spirit, like a fish on a line. The Seeking Array sent reverberations back toward him, squealing against his senses as a presence latched onto it.
It won't work… Felix Nevarre, a familiar voice whispered to him. It sounded thready and weak, a woman lost in the desert. It has… torn me to pieces… and nearly… consumed me. You cannot de-fang this beast… not… alone. Let me aid you.
He could feel the Maw's Will oppose his own, its devious Mind attempting to burrow into him like a beetle. All of his fears, his anger, his hate came rushing to the foreground, inflamed by its touch. Felix clamped down on all of those emotions, cutting the Maw's influence off like chopping off a limb. He felt it howl in pain.
I don't trust your help, Felix hissed. And I need it even less.
Without another second, Felix felt the Maw extend itself along his construct, a sharp, toothy spear aimed for his core. As far as attempts on him went, it was by far the weakest and slowest. Felix stopped its thrust with his Will alone, and the array began to collapse upon the Maw's remnant Mind.
Ravenous Tithe!
A red light so dense it was like liquid blood oozed from between the Ravager's scales. It shot directly into Felix, straight through his core and into his crackling flame. Power flared and burned, and the light grew agonizingly bright. Felix gasped.
You Have Consumed The Mind Of The Unending Maw.
Bloodline Progression is 100%
Stand By.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
The books Felix had read and memorized were not complicated things. Above all else, they stressed the fundamentals of sigaldry: opposing glyphs to enhance effects, modulating the effects of primary sigils with smaller secondary sigils. Basic theory and craft. But, most of all, they emphasized the importance of connections.
To form a proper array, one needs connections. Or, to put it another way, a link to your goal. You can get away with glyph pairs and scripted links, like the obstacle course Rory assembled. Those allowed the sigaldry on all the disparate pieces to communicate with one another, programmed to know how they fit together and to do so by merely feeding them Mana. They were a complicated work of art, as far as Felix's understanding went, and his working was far, far simpler.
He'd overlaid several arrays to work in conjunction with each other, but that merely increased the Mana load, which even now drained him almost to nothing. For the best results, however, one needed a real connection between the array and what it was looking to achieve. Felix already had a connection to the Maw. Stronger than any other. He'd died fighting the Maw, more or less.
Using the Maw as a focus, Felix felt his array finally catch, even as an interminable heat built up in his core and notifications streamed past his eyes.
All Choices Have Consequences.
Stand By.
He'd devoured the Maw. Considering the tattered remnant it had become, it had been easy. But as his simple array caught hold within the Ravager King, and Felix felt the heat of his Bloodline Progression burn through his gut and chest, he realized he'd underestimated the effects. The Ravager had been trying to digest the Maw's Mind itself, mixing it with its Primordial essence until they were One. Like drawn to like, the Maw's pieces clung to one another like iron filings on a magnet.
The Mind he'd pulled into himself raged, and the same notification flashed by again and again. Stand By. Felix held on as his Body and Spirit shook, hard enough that he barely noticed the writhing pain of the mountainous dragon beneath him.
"What have you done!" Its titanic voice shook the sky in its confusion. "I—I cannot hear my god! I CANNOT HEAR!"
Blue-white lines of fire manifested across a relatively small section of the Ravager King's back, geometric designs overlapping in rapid succession. Felix fed the Queen essence that clogged his and Pit's cores, dumping the nigh-toxic quantities out and into the section of the array he'd designated as a siphon. A rush of power fled his channels, along with the last of his Mana, and a final corona of blue-white sigils flared into existence above the Ravager's hide.
The yellow-red glow of Profane Sigaldry guttered out. The Ravager King floundered, and fell from the sky.
It worked!
"BETRAYAL! FIEND! VESSEL OF LIES!"
Felix plummeted beside it, unable to hold back a scream of primal terror. Torn from the beast's hide by the wind, Felix fell mere feet above it. That was all that saved him, as the Ravager flailed its serpentine neck, belching out plumes of green fire in every direction. Its wings beat hard, pushing at the air to keep itself aloft. It only succeeded in jolting Felix's body, slamming him back onto its iron-hard scales. Frantically, he grabbed the edge of one, his talons finding bare purchase on their surface.
Without warning, a verifiable sea of bloody essence ripped up out of the scales around him. It was a thick and dense syrup that smashed against his Body, burning across even his strengthened skin. Felix screamed, his fanged maw open to the sky. The essence wormed its way into him through his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his pores. Any way it could.
Like drawn to like.
He hadn't just torn a broken piece of the Maw's Mind… he'd taken all of the Maw from the Ravager King's belly. Every single piece of what gave the Ravager such power; that made it a Primordial.
The King bellowed titanically, but its voice was a distant rumble beside the tempest that roared in Felix's ears. Intuitively, he shared the corrosive burden with Pit, who took more of the Maw's essence into himself without hesitation. But even with Pit's help, Felix couldn't handle it. His core, previously pushed to near-breaking by the Queen's foul essence, felt like it would shatter under the deluge.
It's too much!
They fell toward the broken earth, and Felix couldn't even release his Companion so that he could fly away. Without each other's support, the power would tear them both apart.
Pit! Felix groaned, mindlessly gripping the sharp edges of the Ravager's huge scales.
Breathe, the Chimera's voice cooed. Breathe.
Feathers rested against his arms, a warm, fuzzy lump against his back.
Felix breathed.
Do as me, Pit said to him, a chorus of senses and birdsong. Words weren't needed through their bond, but it always sounded like words to Felix. Do as this.
The sensation of a spinning wind, of unseen eddies ruffling feathers. Memories new and old of flight.
As they fell, Felix tried to copy his Companion. Tumbling end over end, he fought.
A storm inside, a raging inferno that crackled with lightning. His core was a tempest untamed. Inch by inch, he pushed at it, visualizing what he needed. Slowly, achingly slowly, it moved.
It spun.
"Felix!" Vess shouted and white-knuckled her spear so hard she felt she'd break her hand. She couldn't stop watching her friend fall from the sky atop that abomination. "We have to do something!"
"We have to run!" Atar shouted right back. He was propping up Alister, though his Stamina was more than strained. "That was the plan! The array activated, and we go!"
"Ugh, stop yelling," Evie groaned. She held her hip and her head simultaneously. "How do you mages get over losin' all your Mana like that?"
"We… don't do it… often," Alister panted. The man was looking worse by the second, and they would be in the same state soon enough. Their wardstones had only minutes left.
Vess turned back toward the sky, where the draconic beast was flapping its wings powerfully. It appeared to have slowed.
Elemental Eye!
Swirls of noxious crimson power clouded her vision, corrupted blood Mana. She focused past it, willing her ability to draw a bead on Felix. But the movements of the creature had obscured his position. Still, the Skill adjusted.
Elemental Eye is level 37!
Vess could see a strange flux of Mana swirling around the Ravager King, yellow-red and a vibrant blue-white that were popping and smashing together with all the force of a thunderstorm.
Felix, where are you?
"Vess, we have ta go," Harn said to her in a low voice. Vess pulled her gaze away from the sky and turned to see the rest of them moving further away. Evie lingered close by, still leaning on a borrowed spear. "We gotta get outta the Domain before it collapses."
"And Felix?"
"It was his plan," Harn reminded her. Vess clenched her jaw and looked back up just in time to see the beast breathe another cloud of green flame. Even from such a distance, a wave of heat washed over them, instantly drying out her eyes and making her skin tighten.
"That is a dragon," Vess said. She looked back at her friend, her best friend, and grinned. "My family has a thing about dragons."
Harn just met Vess' eyes briefly. "Aye. It certainly looks like one."
"Shit," Evie snorted and leaned off the spear. "I gotta see this."
Harn clapped her on the back and walked away. "Good luck, kid."
But Vess wasn't watching him anymore. She hefted her spear and looked around. She needed—ah, there.
Pickings were slim, but she needed to be as high as possible for this next part.
Stand By.
The instant the Mana in his core began to move, it became a blazing ring of blue-white light and crackling discharge. The Maw's essence, distilled and thickened so graciously by the creatures of the Domain, was pulled into that whirlwind until it spun above his core in a similar fashion. Until an internal suction suddenly yanked a generous portion of it inward, into the spinning flame.
Blue-white fire and snapping lightning dimmed as the dark, corrosive energy permeated it. For a terrible second, Felix feared it would be smothered, suffocated into a wisp of smoke. But then it rallied and blazed brighter than it ever had before.
A wave of energy swept outward, a ringing gong and ascending arpeggio at the same time. It crested into his revolving Skills beyond the ring of light. The blue-white energy set his various skills burning ever brighter, each of them releasing, in turn, a crystal-clear note, one that sent goosebumps across Felix's entire body.
The golden light that had been dwelling within his core, suppressed and unable to go anywhere since the Queen's demise, suddenly exploded outward, hitting his ring of light and following the blue-white wave in, washing out into his dark core space. Potency soaked into him, and notifications started flashing across his vision.
Bloodline Affected by Extended Contact With A Primordial!
Your Race Has Changed!
New Race!
Primordial Nym: A cadence long Lost, a Union new once more. +2 to WIL, INT, DEX, And END Per Level. +7 Bonus Stats Per Level. -10% XP Gain.
First Threshold Exceeded!
Calculating...
Racial Skill Gained!
What Dwells Beneath is replaced by Sovereign of Flesh!
Level Is Maintained!
Sovereign of Flesh (Transcendent), Level 49!
Flesh is as clay to you! Gain increasing control over your Body, increasing your Strength, Endurance, and Vitality by a flat 25% when active. Requires Essence to function. Control and speed of transformation increases with each level, pain decreases moderately per level, and Health regeneration increases slightly per level. Amount of Essence required per transformation decreases minimally per level.
Harmonic Stats Unlocked!
+Evasion (EVA) - Affects physical defense. Confluence of Dexterity and Agility.
+Might (MIG) - Affects feats of the Body. Confluence of Strength and Endurance.
+Felicity (FEL) - Affects mental defense. Confluence of Perception and Dexterity.
Harmonic Threshold Exceeded!
Calculating...
Racial Skill Gained!
Unite the Lost (Transcendent), Level 1!
The Ruin is not the End. Seek the Center. Unite the Lost.
Felix felt his body shift and change while, beneath him, the Ravager King finally managed to lift itself upon its massive wings. Scales and bony crests lifted from the flesh of his arms, until he looked practically armored. His musculature swelled, and Felix felt heavier than ever before, having to shift his body to avoid falling flat on his fanged face. What's more, atop these scales appeared lines of bright blue light, stark against the black and mottled gray. They swirled like convoluted knots, mazes that he could barely follow, building from his center until they spread across his shoulders and down his arms and legs.
"You ignore Us, Vessel! Do so at your peril!"
The Ravager King bellowed out another challenge and spun its preternaturally supple form, hurling Felix off its back and into the sky.
He barely noticed, his head filled with a wash of glorious song.
Etheric Concordance is level 44!
...
Etheric Concordance is level 49!
Fire Within is level 50!
...
Fire Within is level 57!
Ravenous Tithe is level 50!
...
Ravenous Tithe is level 54!
Congratulations! You Have Reached Journeyman Tier in—
Coming to himself, Felix cut off the notifications mid-stream. Now wasn't the time to Tier up, he realized. Unfortunately, that was also the moment his horizontal flight ended and he began to plunge toward the ground.
"AHHHH!"
Felix windmilled his arms and kicked out his legs, trying desperately to cast something that might help.
Pit! He shouted through their bond. Their connection felt stronger and more clear than it ever had. He could sense the deep lethargy that had hold of his Companion within him. Pit! Wake up!
The Ravager King circled its nimble bulk, turning its blunt dragon's head toward the falling Nym. It began to dive directly for him.
PIT!
A sensation of heat and bright clarity pulsed through his bond, and Felix heard the strident cry of a hunting hawk.
Sovereign of Flesh!
Already active, the Skill flared ever brighter, sending cascading waves of sound across the ring of fire that his core had become, and Felix felt something tear from him. Two somethings, with a quick, fierce pain that faded as fast as it had arrived. Without warning, Felix's entire body lurched as something dragged him upward. He turned to look incredulously behind him.
He had wings.
What the fuck?
Pit crowed in his Spirit, pleased as peach with himself. Sense memories flitted between them at lightning speed, and Felix suddenly understood. They could share features now, due to their high Concordance and his new Skill, Sovereign of Flesh. And now he had wings. They were a twisted mix of bat and bird; dark membranes studded with inconsistent black plumage, each feather highlighted by a vibrant cyan edge.
Pit screeched in warning, and without thinking, Felix dove.
Just barely avoiding the twisting, barbed tentacles of the Ravager King, but not fast enough to avoid the massive windstream it produced. Felix was thrown about, sucked into the Primordial's wake.
"Thief! Thief of Mothers, of Fate itself!" The Ravager King twisted its hind legs independently of its top half and lashed out. "Thief of Blood!"
Unfettered Volition!
It felt like what he imagined getting hit by a bullet train was like; blinding impact, then he was sent flying. Felix careened through the sky, his Skill allowing him to only take the barest hint of the Primordial's force. Still, his Health had dropped a whole 30%, and despite his enhanced regeneration, he couldn't take many more hits like that.
Shell Integrity is at 9.5%!
Failure Imminent!
Seek Shelter Immediately.
Damn it, Felix cursed. The thing is still standing… I don't know if I can do this.
His Perception snagged on something far below them, a glimmer in the rocks. Without hesitation, Felix tucked his wings, leaning heavily on Pit's instincts, and dropped from the sky.
The Ravager King recovered, twisted about, and was in hot pursuit. Its gargantuan wings beat at the air with such ferocity that space itself began to break apart.
Shell Integrity is at 8.4%!
Failure Imminent!
Seek Shelter Immediately.
Felix flew down, down closer to the earth than ever before. The abomination was extremely agile, but it was huge; he'd like to see it maneuver properly, this close to the rocky center of the island.
True to form, the Ravager King gave chase, shouting obscenities at Felix as he evaded its jaws again and again. That was no mean feat, as Felix was drawing heavily on his bond to keep his head on right and fly true. Unfettered Volition helped after that point, translating Pit's instincts into Felix's motion without a hitch or seam.
It was the only reason he was still alive.
Yet, as Felix banked near a half-melted promontory, the Primordial cut his lead to nothing. Felix strained to put on more speed, but his remarkable stats were paltry compared to the Ravager King. Hooked tendrils lifted from the beast's snout, whiskers of nightmare, and swiped at Felix's legs, each strike getting closer and closer.
