Chapter 8-16 Thousandhand

Chapter 8-16 Thousandhand

Dont engage.

But

You spoil the only fun the old woman has for months, and she'll kick the shit out of you. Thousandhands been talking about cutting these Hungers for a fuck-long time. Let her play. Well move in if she needs it.

Her Frame Its just a Sixth Sphere

Yeah. Like shes going to need it.

-Cas eldCanduir to Valerie Denton, Ninth Column

8-16

Thousandhand

It was hard to describe a cut so pure it inflicted a groove of hurt deeper than the pain of flesh.

The slash cut him out of reality, the edge of the blade painting a stroke of thought-cleaving agony down to the root of his being. His cog-feed flickered, an indelible line marring the forms of his ghosts, his thoughts splitting into disjointed streams.

A horse-head came loose from his Galeslither, the manifestation of his Heaven partially decapitated, form unspooling from thaumaturgy as his Hell screamed.

REND CAPACITY: 100%Ñøv€lRapture marked the initial hosting of this chapter on Ñôv€lß¡n.

WARNING: BACKLASH

CLASHING CANON

[SPACE]: YONDERGALES

VENT! VENT! VENT!

The flood of Rend came sudden and stark, with his Galeslithers Third Circle struggling to compensate for the backlash. Something had contradicted one of his canons, and gutted his Yondergales open.

Rolling tides of stratocumulus spilled out through the wound, washing into the world outside as Avo shed the form of the Galeslither. The cessation of the billowing tempest was instant, the Galeslither itself a storm that never was.

Avo plunged, his path taking him through a fissure open upon the tapestr of existence. The streets of Xin Yunsha flashed by his eyes and through fogs he fell. Echoheads spearing down to stabilize his descent. The world slowed, and him along with it. His tails hung in the air, falling slowly like they were digging through quicksand, his body drawn taut by an unseen force, time itself feeling like a viscous fluid.

A reflexive urge to struggle wrestled a precious moment away before Avo mastered himself. He cast out his Whisper andto his relieffound that his thoughts flowed unimpeded.

Splashing his surroundings with a narrow beam of perception, he reoriented himself as the pain receded from his senses, his mortal flesh uncleaved, but his Galeslither winced as it bled the venom of entropy down into the funnel of its Hell.

The ground he struck was not plascrete but metal. Metal rusted and piled. Metal protruded from the soil, like new teeth pushing through gums, or soil, ripe to bear strange fruit.

The world around him was shaped in a loop? Avo did a double take as he felt his own perception echo back upon his form.

Suddenly, the resistance melted away. Avo breathed. Avo moved.

His Echoheads split steel and sank deeper into the unnatural soil. Beneath vines enmeshed with plant matter and wiring both, he studied the world around him, head swiveling, tails chittering.

The total area of this plane felt no greater than fifty square feet, but it folded in on itself, a geometrical construct of limited perpetuity.

Above, strange mists caused more vines to sway. Budding bullets rain down in soft falls of gauss flechettes and flathead slugs, spilling free like ripe seeds.

Columns rose around him, part oak, park weapon stand, their sides slotted with jutting blades, maces, spears, guns, and axes, acting as spines to this garden of weapons. They grew high like beanstalk-armories reaching into the sky, spinning like a spiral as the permutation of armaments churned and changed.

This is a nice garden, yes? I cultivated it myself.

The woman before him simply appeared. There was no emergence, no movement preceding her arrival. She wasnt. And then she was.

Taken aback by the womans sudden manifestation, Avo fired his Celerostylus and made to move back. The lurch of time followed, but impossibly, the world around him readjusted itself. The mist spilled faster, going from a drizzle to a hailstorm of flechettes. His Soul rang with warning klaxons inside him, the Woundshaper bubbling in anticipation of bloodshed.

TEMPORAL ANOMALY DETECTED

With the world around him racing to keep pace with his heightened reflexes, the effects of his surging synapses grew nullified. Discontent roiled in Avos heart as he snarled; the deprivation of his new gift gnawed at him, feeling as if the edge of a new blade made dull.

The crossing of time relaxed as he quelled his reflexes, and with the flattening of his perception, so too did the flow of time in this garden equalize.

If there was but one consolation, however, it was that his adversary did not attack, finding contentment in looking upon him instead, her right hand resting on a hilt bereft of a blade.

Slipping past the gargantuan blades that uncannily resembled the hulls of certain voidships, Avo gazed upon her palace and immediately froze. Her internal mem-data shifted and changed at a catastrophic rate, her ghosts moving as if they were streaks of lightning, the engine of her mind a phantasmal construct of pure speed.

Without his Celerostylus slowing things, he could

+Remarkable,+ Zeins voice came again, her mind ebbing with genuine amusement. +You managed to smuggle yourself into my mind. Quite the skilled Necro, arent we.+

Avo froze. His blood stilled. Her awareness remained at zero in her cog-feed, so how

Its a good trick, Zein said, this time in the real, her expression as if suddenly realizing something. Both yours and mine. You play perception from angles, but I wield it by using the question: when? Still, I commend your skill. It takes quite the Necrojack to slip past my focus. She nodded. I think Walton would quite be proud of you, Avo.

Suddenly, Avo felt something slip free from his mind. Incredulous, he turned to realize that not only had she used her influence over time to notice his intrusion somehow, but her Specter was also hovering above, its perception beaming over his shoulder.

Suddenly, her hand was on his shoulder. She moved. When did she move? He didnt even noticedidnt even feel it.

Dont be bothered, she said, shaking him, youre quite good. I simply stole the technique from you. By gazing back into the past. The pace of our minds however ah, a trifling thing. You show great promise.

Promise? Avo said, setbacks sending him into a stupor.

Quite so, Zein said. Then she was back where she stood. She didnt walk. She didnt move. She just was.

Master, he heard his Woundshaper whisper. I think I think she is skipping across time. Jumping forward.

Avo sighed. Of course, that was a Heaven someone had. Time. A Heaven of Time with a canon of skimming?

Come, she said, rolling her shoulders, I wish to see what else you are capable of. But before that

She snapped her finger and suddenly, a large cylindrical mechanism appeared next to him. It was an ugly industrial orange piston, looking far too rusted for use. Groaning, it began to topple.

For the Rend, Zein said.

Avo understood. Expanding a sphere of stasis, the winds caught the falling block and the weight hinged itself along the bubbles surface, draining his Rend.

REND CAPACITY: 97%

Now, what Avos words died in his throat. Geometry around Zein shivered. He felt the blows like a series of bombs going off against his fungal-ceramite plating, her palm blurring into countless thrusts, resounding thunderclaps shivering his very blood.

Yet, no pain followed the impact. No wounds. Only a faint ringing, and a tingling numbness.

Avo tried to move his arms, tried to claw at Zein. Only his arms didnt answer him. He stayed upright through the strength of his Echoheads alone.

His Echoheads.

He swept one down at hera predictable attack meant to provoke action. She vanished. His Echohead halted and chittered, filling the world around him with static waves. She rematerialized by his side, already in motion to deliver another blow. She found herself greeted by the snapping extensions of another of his tails.

In his tactile sense, he felt her halt as the blow struck her dead out. The air crackled. She shuddered. Avo growled, wheezing with nerve-deaded laughter as Zein toppled.

And turned.

An impossible force seized him by the speartip of his Echohead and tore him high. It was only by merit of his other tails rooting deeper into the ground that he wasnt sent tumbling into the air, but merely off balance.

Off balancing into another rising palm.

This time, the impact plumed in a shockwave out from his back. Air emptied itself from Avo as he felt both his kidneys melt into nothingness. Spots formed in his vision. Above, he heard the rainfall stop momentarily.

Then, the ground rushed up to hit him, his Echoheads now twitching uselessly as well.

The In-Seers of Sanctus called this technique Ringing the Spirit, Zein explained. Avo made noise comparable to a constipated nu-dog. Not quite so effective on a ghoul considering the biological redundancies you possess. The tentacles are a nice touch. Two-structure biology. It is always good to be prepared.

It was a special kind of miserable to be praised and lectured while one was pawing at handfuls of dirt and metal.

Do you have Waltons Helix? Zein asked. I wanted to ask earlier but I decided to hit you first instead.

Avo coughed a vague affirmation.

Splendid. He wanted you to have it. He was always very proud of youspoke highly of you. I think I see why Her voice trailed off. With a nudge, she rolled him over on his side and had him look up at her.

As shards of tungsten fell forth from the sky, Zein nodded down at him, fingers tapping her blade contemplatively. Yes.

Ye-yes? Avo asked.

I think I will take you as my apprentice. Should you accept, of course. You will be the first in manyehdays. You should feel proud.

Feels like my insides are shaking.

Zein frowned faux seriously. What an odd sensation of pride you feel, young one. Come. Up. Up. Your foresight deals you justice. Your striking however can be improved! Stand quickly. I wish to show you something.

Mind spinning from the constant left turns the old woman foisted on him, Avo worked to get his Echoheads under control first. Is it another beating?

Of course not, Zein said, lying badly, grinning broadly.