Chapter Five Hundred And Fifty Three – 553

Chapter Five Hundred And Fifty Three – 553

Adamant Discord!

A tether of lightning lashed back, affixed to the very air itself as Felix fell in a tangle with the Steel Elemental and Chimera. Pit unleashed a heavy barrage of light crescents, each strike carving shallow slices into the elementals tough exterior as it forced its clumsy, grasping arms away. Felix rotated his body, twisting against the rushing wind until his feet met metal.

Cloudstep!

A platform of crackling Mana appeared just beneath the elemental, stopping its descent just long enough for Felix to flex his powerful legs. He screamed, anger and stress bottled as one, and blasted the monster through his Cloudstep and into the mountainside. The elementals roar cut off, buried under the sound of screeching metal and falling rocks.Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

You Have Killed A Steel Elemental!

XP Earned!

Shadow Whip!

From one hand, Felix hurled a coil of shadow, snapping it around his Companion and tangling against itself. Gotcha! Felix cried.

In his other hand, the lightning tether glowed fiercely. Felix hauled back on the empty air, grunting at the sheer strain as inertia dragged at his shoulder joint. His Body proved up to the challenge, and moments later they were both flung upward at breakneck speed.

The ledge! Pit shouted out.

I know! Felix passed the staircase where theyd fallen, ascending still on the cable-like connection hed seized from the air. Time to take a shortcut!

The mountain flashed by them, a blur of stone as more elementals crowded its surface. Boulders were launched after the duo, but Felix kicked away the few that came close. Ice Drakes swirled in the clouds all around them, their own attacks all but replacing the hail, but Pit met those with superheated light and an unflinching cry.

Yet monsters and weather were not their only obstacles. Theyd risen around a thousand feet, the stairway coming in and out of view, when a vicious pressure settled on Felixs shoulders. It shoved him down, or tried to, refuting his claim to the sky.

Felix screamed. The pressure buckled, dimpling the thick cumulonimbus clouds around them as true lightning flashed. Baseball-sized hail came at them sideways, shattering against Felixs newly summoned scales and Pits barding. The stairway rounded the mountain just above them, and Felix pulled them closer.

You Have Left The Path!

You May Not Return!

What? A sheen of prismatic Mana formed a barrier around the carved stairs, preventing them from landing. Fine!Adamant Discord!

Felix blasted upward, hauling harder than ever on his seized connections. Lightning became a bar of blue-white energy as he ascended, faster and faster, hurtling through greater and greater amounts of spiritual pressure. Felix bodied it all, smashing his midnight scales against whatever being wanted him to fail. They shouted, twinned Primordial voices screaming into the storm.

They would not be stopped.

Thick, cloying clouds washed over them, passed them, before they emerged suddenly from the other side. The raging blizzard was gone, left below. Felix stopped, hovering atop a set of Cloudsteps, Pit trembling beside him.

Thats a little intimidating, he admitted.

Spread out before them, flying just above the lightning strewn clouds below, were Ice Drakes. Not one or two or fivebut thousands. The immense creatures were strong, but Felix had beaten them handily before. Pit had too. What they hadnt handled before, however, was the monster that flew behind them. A Superior Elemental, fashioned into the likeness of an Ice Drake but magnified at least three times in all dimensions. Its back was surmounted by ice crystals the size of small trees, while its wedge-shaped head was lit by a purple-white light. Felixs Voracious Eye pinged its power at somewhere around a Tier VIroughly analogous with a Master at the upper reaches of their Temper.

Yeah, Pit agreed. His sides were heaving as he breathed, and a few of his minor wounds had opened back up. Just a little.

Felix could feel his friends exhaustion, his pain, and the stubborn anger that boiled in Pits heart. The temptation to make his Companion retreat was strong, but Felix pushed it away. You ready?

I Pit growled, but it was laced with a sharp whine. I cant. I cant fight them all, Felix. Im toothe climb, the fall, I Pit whimpered. It hurts.

Its okay. Felix hugged his friend around the neck, tight as he could without opening up his wounds. I got you, bud.

Convergence!

Pit initiated the retreat, vanishing in a flash of light and settled like a lead weight in Felixs Spirit. For a moment, Felix simply stood there, contemplating the approaching horde. He had perhaps thirty seconds before the distance Ice Drakes reached him. More than enough time to center himself. To breathe.

The Superior Ice Drake shrieked, sending a violent shockwave across the clouds. Felix leaned into it, ignoring the way it threatened to shatter his ear drums. He was focused. The horde drew closer.

Time to end it.

He shifted his weight and the Cloudstep beneath him groaned as he leaned forward. Adamant Discord.

Conjured platforms exploded as he took off, the very clouds around him blown through in an ever-widening circle. Felix rode lightning, skin shining with light and fire. The closest Ice Drakes opened their jaws and unleashed a torrent of freezing, unshaped Mana. Felix met it with all the fury and power at his disposal.

Rime Shaping!

Felix took hold of the unshaped ice Mana before him, splitting it in half as he sped through the breach. Each portion he shaped into blunt projectiles, hurled sideways at the line of Ice Drakes even as he ripped his fist through the first.

You Have Killed An Ice Drake!

A booming laugh ripped across the air. Not from the elemental, who Felix doubted could even open its sculpted mouth. Instead it was from the clouds above, and was accompanied by a sudden, intense spiritual pressure and even worse cold.

Thats not creepy, he muttered. The cold ratcheted up further, until even Felix was uncomfortable. Felix had no shaping magic to affect the creature. Metal was beyond his control, so he couldnt affect it like the Ice Drakes. He pulled at his Mana, sounding Cardinal Flame once moreonly to find his flames would not manifest. The cold choked them out entirely.

The elemental stomped out of the fading dust cloud, gaining speed with each step. It lifted an arm, clearly telegraphing its attack, something that Harn had told Felix time and again to never do in a fight. That is, unless your opponent had no chance of stopping it anyway.

Fuck it, Felix growled. You wanna brawl? Im game.

Adamant Discord!

He shot forward like lightning itself, fist pulled back the same as the elemental. Within his fist a corrosive green power gathered, splashing outward in a thick, undulated wake.

Hand of Calamity!

Wild Threnody!

They met, fist to gargantuan fist, and it was as if a mountain had split in two. A sonic boom tore through the air, followed closely by a wave of pure, potent acid and the sparks of metal on metal. The elemental staggered back, hand mangled and wrist bent out of true.

Felix followed. There would be no wasted time or testing this enemy.

Hand of Calamity!

Wild Threnody!

He sounded his acid shaping Skill over and over, stacking the patterns until they hummed with such ferocity it hurt his ears. Felix lashed out, landing on the elementals forearm and bringing all of his might to bear. With a nightmarish screech of metal, the creatures arm bent inward.

More.

Again he hit, this time a savage kick at the elemental's other arm, knocking it away and snapping off two of its fingers.

More!

Felix wreathed himself in acid, letting the waves of thick Mana envelop him entirely, before hurling himself straight into the monsters chest. The elemental lifted its arms, but its bent appendage left an opening, and Felix rammed intothroughthe creatures steel carapace.

Directly into its core.

Chthonic Tribute!

Just as the Ice Drake before it, the core dissolved, pouring into Felixs open maw before the rest of the elemental followed. The Essence and Mana were nice, but again the significance was finally more than a whisper thin rivulet.

Multi-Cast is level 83!

Hand Of Calamity is level 67!

Wild Threnody is level 86!

You Have Killed A Superior Steel Elemental!

XP Earned!

Final Guardian Defeated!

You have ascended the Path of Rule and fought to the very summit of the Ironskin Domain! Congratulations, Challenger! You have proven worthy of rule!

New Title!

Ironskin Champion IX (Epic)!

You have successfully conquered the ninth layer of the Ironskin Domain, proving your worth to the Frostfather! +20 END, VIT, DEX

What? Felix frowned at the notifications. Thats it? A single measly Title?

The sky rumbled again, but there was no booming laughter. A steely silence hung all around as the blizzard went unnaturally still. Even the wind had stopped blowing.

I know youre there! Felix shouted into the sky. I need more than this! We Felix snapped his mouth shut. Fine. If you wanna hide, then so be it.

He squared himself off, letting midnight scales crawl up his face and over his mouth, until he was covered in a second jaw of razor sharp fangs. A nightmarish half-mask.

Ill come to you.

Adamant Discord!