Chapter 10-22 The Pruning of the Path (I)

Chapter 10-22 The Pruning of the Path (I)

Aegis, this is Sunrise. I confirm Rupture containmentthe Heaven remains unfallen. Reality is stabilizing.

Negative. I do not see the Stillborn. Reflections are collapsing over each other. Space is getting shunted throughout the affected regions. Im widening my drones; we might be able to

[Distant explosions]

Never mind, I have him. Hes in Nu-Scarrowburoh.

Aegis, number expected collateral. Got a lot more people about to die for Thousandhands little adjustments.

--Sunrise,Aegis Operative,Voidwatch

10-22

The Pruning of the Path (I)

Jhred Greatling died with an implosion of Soulfire, but its collapse never reached the point of culmination.

Ingressing radiance crashed down like a wave against Avos rippling Soul, the metaphysical mass fusing to his while he consumed. The Daemon shivered and twitched, still pinned by the Fulgerhund.

As glistening gore misted the air behind glinting implants flung free by the wind, his nucleus suckled the length of the uncoiled dragon and the Twice-Walker bound to its end like a mouth would slurp a noodle.

Caught in the wake of the ontological subsumption, the leaping electricity dancing along the length of the Fulgerhund was stretched from its physical anchor. A lightning-infused mastiff strained against the gravity of Avos Frame, its being fighting to stay connected to the golem itself.

In the throes of his meal, he barely noticed the force he was exerting on Draus vehicle. Nor Abrel above them, standing on the precipice of a torn hallway. The sprawl of the Spines districts spread out behind her like a panorama of devastation matching her face.

He didnt even notice how each reflective gatewayonce boundwas collapsing as tunnels of space snapped from binary to unitary boundaries per the laws of baseline reality. The stability of existence reassumed its control like a funnel of space smashing across vectored regions, injecting everything caught between their paths elsewhere.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

A vast wall of cascading space rushed over them as burst glass fell around them. Before she could react, a separate tunnel swallowed Abrel, peeling another section of the block away along with her.

The world about Avo blurred into confusion. The Fulgerhund snapped free, now missing its tip, sailing into his wind-shaped grasp. Reality clenched and fired them along what felt like a magnetic accelerator, injecting them from one place to another.

Volumetric reality around them lurched, and suddenly the layout of their environment glitched as gravity drew droplets of blood and debris like they had been plucked from the ground.

They had been transposed out from threads of light glinting from a shard of glass, flung well past the stretch of Mazzas Junction. Now, they were tumbling into a fall again, the expanse of the districts yawning wide beneath them.

Such a thing was only of secondary regard to Avo, for so besotted was he on the taste of premium flesh and divine nectar that the sensations of the fall were but shadows in the backdrop.

This was thrill. This was killing. This was all he had been meant to be and more. This was the actualization of what it meant to be a ghoul and a Godclad bothto climb the apex in concept of power and predation both.

[LIMINAL FRAME] OBTAINED - BROADSWORD PATTERN

->TWICE-WALKER HEAVEN TEMPLATE DOWNLOADED

->THAUMIC CYCLER x1

->SOUL x1

->ONTOLOGICS x2

THAUMIC OUTPUT - 4673 THAUM/c

The Soul within Avo expanded, its reach spreading vast as his ontology washed widerunning a just beyond the expanse of an entire district. Yet with it came a bone-hollowing emptinesshis Heavens remained too small, doomed much of his subreality to remain a lake of simulated light. Docked to the borders of his Frame was a diminutive cluster attached in a pocket.

The Frame he took from Jhred had enclosed a tight knot about the faint ember that remained of its thaumic core. It seemed a little more than pimple upon his immensity now, though Avo knew it possessed greater purpose than its present state of atrophy.

With an injection of Essence, it would unfurl and its center would unveil itself. There was a groove of absence at the apex of its Soula place for the Nous of a new master to mantle its ontology and serve as pilot.

That thought pulled Draus into Avos mind.

It was done. The killing was done. The high of his excitement had yet to fade, but the first needle of his rationality punctured through the ecstasy of the beast and his Woundshaper. They needed to egress and flee.

Faintly, he heard another voice scratching at the back of his mind, its sound a distorted neigh of confusion. A war steed emerging from a fog, greeted by lands unknown and faces unfamiliar.

Pulling the mangled pulp that remained of Jhred through a current of wind, Avo thought to keep a snack for himself later as a personal post-feast snack to relive the high. The pieces of the corpse were halfway through as he turned to reach for the Fulgerhund, planning to escape.

The deafening screech of a falcon drew his attention back to the present. Ashen feathers formed from the smoke crowning the collapsing megablock - a prelude to a theater of cleaving lights that partitioned the mushrooming fog building upon the wreckage.

Two more presences flashed upon the real, his Liminal Frame brushing themsensing their presence before sight offered any revelations.

Swallowing the Fulgerhund into his Yondegales, Avo twisted in the air as he sought to make a quiet escape.

The crash she portended came before she could finish. Something struck the golem hard and it went into a spiral. Strapped into protective gimbals, Essus, Chambers, and Draus were spared the worst of the inertia as protective mechanisms compensated on their behalf.

Avo himself was not so fortunate. The sheer force of the impact sent his Echohead slicing clean along the armor, unable to find a foundation of stability. He slipped free. His back struck the rear of the crew module as his plates and threaded fibers stopped the impact.

Again, he found himself more than grateful he had the Bone Demon body sheathe grafted. A regular ghoul would have smeared, and with his Rend so high across both cyclers, real death would not be such a theoretical concept for him.

Winded from the impact, he felt the air catch in his chest several more times as he tumbled across the ceiling and walls, his foot catching Chambers across the forehead. With each bounce, he acclimated more, Celerostylus infusing the chaos with languor as he caught himself via his Echoheads.

They came to a final grinding halt as a pole of plasteel punctured through the cockpit toward the pilots gimbal.

Draus caught it and wrenched it out of shape with a single hand.

With a final lurch, the last of their momentum died.

Then the shooting began.

Outside the golem, flechettes rained down. Inside, it sounded as if they were seeking refuge from a hailstorm within a tin can. The metal around them deformed in dips and dents. Holographic displays spewed nothing but errors, depriving them of any functional understanding of how long they could hold.

Chambers head was swiveling around in terror, his mouth still open in a constant scream. Essus had simply leaned back, face showing the sheer immensity of his exhaustion from all that happened.

Shrugging himself free from the impression he left in the panels leading to the storage section, Avo reached out with a haemokinetic tendril and peeked at the situation using his Whisper.

REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 82%

VENT! VENT! VENT!

Irregular salvos of fire from gauss-flung weapons and other projectiles were bearing down on them from all directions. They were currently crashed, leaning against the interior of what looked to be a quick-fabbed tenement building crusted at the foot of an abandoned factory.

At least he had a direction of which way he had to vent now.

Tearing herself free from the gimbal, Draus shook her head and gestured for a link, unfazed by the constant hammering of falling gunfire.

Avo whipped out a tendril and fed her his sensory feed to the outside.

+Well. As far as the runs concern, the milks gone pretty sour.+

+Not really,+ Avo disagreed. +Got Mirrorhead. Got his Frame. Killed thousands. Good day.+

She snorted. Chambers and Essus were detaching themselves with haste. +Well, youre bout to be a happy rotlick, cause the day aint over. Counting at least sixty impact trajectories. Give us twelve more seconds before one gets through.+

+Going to vent out the side. Move through the slum and get into the factory. Find another way out after that. Or+

+Or?+

+Got Mirrorheads Frame. Shouldnt take long to graft.+

Her mind lurched to a halt. Apprehension and indecision formed over her like a stormcloud. She tilted her head at Essus and Chambers. +Lets exfil first. Bounty comes after.+

He didnt bother arguing. Part of him considered just imbuing her with the Frame and fueling her with the thuams, but he remembered how he felt after Waltons node had forced his choice in the Deep Bazaar.

He also remembered who decided to pull him along on a little trip afterward.

Draus deserved better. Draus deserved to choose. Zein and her path would just have to adapt.

Which, unfortunately, was what it did.

After his Soulfire rippled out and drew the dislocated Heaven of the Fulgerhund into his Frame, Avo used his entropic gale to dissolve a pathway out the back of the ruined golem and make for the factory.

As soon as the exit was made, he paused and let Draus through before following, casting the matter-eating fog over them. Shots dipped into the darkness he channeled and never emerged out the other side. Missiles, flechettes, slugs, and more. All fed into his Hells expulsion and his Rend trickled down percentage by percentage.

The Regular barreled through the cheaply made structures around her with a helpful burst from her scythe-like wings. An underground parking entrance for aeros stood out before them as shrapnel skipped overhead.

More and more, however, the shots were being replaced. The fluid beams of fire returned, slicing clean through the golems remains, ignoring the entropic fog entirely. Not wanting to find out what distracted the other they hurried.

The answer came anyway as a massive orb infused with roaring force rose above the block they were rushing toward. Loose harp-like cords formed a body most uncannily chimeric, human in torso, the four legs goat from the legs down.

As Avos Frame brushed that of the Bloodthanes, he grimaced.

LUMENLYRIST, MELODIST OF THE CLEAVING DAWN

THAUMIC OUTPUT: 978 THAUM/c