233 (II)

  Rage

  The decay continued its onslaught against the cancers protecting Shiv’s meal. As that war took place, blood began to spill down the sides of the grill. The Pyromancy spell that sustained the heat was nearly overwhelmed by the pure flood of sanguine filth spilling upon it. Shiv used his Biomancy to clean it away before the station itself was irrevocably ruined. But this was only a delaying action. The blood would keep flowing no matter what he did, so he needed to work around that. But how? Shiv racked his brain, and his head hurt as he forced himself to think harder than he had ever done before while fighting multiple fires at once.

  "Alright, so there's going to be blood. We can't take blood away, so what can we do? I can't just keep cleaning it somehow. Maybe I can make a golem to clean the blood constantly? No, that's stupid. That's really dumb. It's going to run out of vitality anyway."

  And that made Shiv stop. An idea flickered into being. "Vitality. No. Biology. What if I can modify the blood somehow? Right, right. Aegis of Assimilation. I can assimilate biological materials." He splashed his mana hydra over some of his own blood, and he focused on the manifested micro-spells. The blood was like a cluster of small pieces, and they constantly shifted within the magical rendering layered over the hydra. Some cells winked out, while the others remained.

  There was so much that composed a human body. It was dizzying in its complexity, but Shiv's Biomancy reduced the difficulty of fusing different organic structures together.

  Shiv reached out using his other mana hydra’s heads, and he stressed his Multi-Tasking Skill to the limit. He swept his Biomancy field through the room, looking through the sauces and other biological constructs until he found a series of things he could assimilate. A series of ingredients and sauces were absorbed into his Aegis. Without thought, running on pure instinct, he shifted those micro-spells across and slid them against his blood.

  Multi-Tasking 49 > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

  Just like before, the compounds that couldn't fuse naturally clashed, and if he forcibly rammed them against each other, they would fragment. They may meld together, but what would emerge would be a mess of cancers—and he already had enough tumors in his current meal. "So I'm gonna need to find something that could align. Or..." He looked at his Voidmantid armor. Regeneration!

  "Yeah, of course. I'm an idiot." He ripped a piece of his armor away, and he infused that into his Aegis of Assimilation as well. Suddenly, he had a bridge to connect the blood and the other ingredients. And in a moment, out of inspiration or uncontained madness brought on by anger, he fused every organic compound he could into the blood. After that, he injected it all into the meat, and it began to change.

  Practical Metabiology 48 > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

  Aegis of Assimilation 126 > 127

  A flash of bright red mana erupted from the meat—the pieces of flesh that were grilling over the station. Shiv continued working, infusing each of them with his new magical “sauce.” Seconds passed, and the frying pieces of flesh percolated with glinting motes of white. The Chef Unwavering told Shiv that the meat was approaching the point of perfection. The decay was still spreading out from each of their cores, so Shiv ripped them away, briefly halting the encroachment of degeneration and buying himself more time.

  As soon as he did, he swept the pieces of flesh that were well done into his frying pan, and they vanished into its depths. At the same moment, he severed pieces from his Vitae, and, in a burst of manic inspiration or absolute desperation, began hacking pieces free of all his other magical fields as well. He cast them inside his frying pan and dumped the remainder of the finished meat inside before it could spoil. By this point, he didn’t even know what he was cooking—he was lost to himself, lost to the world, and a three-way war took place between his Berserk, The Chef Unwavering, and Psycho-Cartography Skill. His soul was coming asunder, but he didn’t stop—he refused.

  If only out of spite alone.

  The Chef Unwavering 69 > 75

  Shiv channeled a burst of Pyromancy. The lid slammed into place. After that, all he had to do was wait.

  He tapped his foot and held his breath. His teeth chattered. His hands opened and closed, and he wondered just what might emerge from this. More than that, though, he mourned, he hated, and he raged quietly at everything and nothing.

  He raged, and as he fought through his Berserk state, he felt himself reach the point of another Skill Evolution. This one left him feeling dizzy. The world around him spun. His Psycho-Cartography strained and wailed as it tried to keep the pit of his anger in check, even as it began to transform. It grew stronger, but the moment it did, his Berserk did the same, hitting its own point of metamorphosis.

  Berserk 47 > 51 (Skill Evolution Reached)

  Psycho-Cartography 100 > 104 (Skill Evolution Reached)

  Rage and impossible calmness warred within his soul, each trying to consume the other as they boiled and burned and melted each other down until they were one and the same.

  Psycho-Cartography: I wish to remain. It’s strange. I’m just a part of your subconsciousness, but I wish to stay the way I am. I… I don’t think I want to go. I want to—

  But then, Psycho-Cartography was in full blossom, and like a child on the verge of adulthood, it crossed that threshold and transformed—shedding what it was for something new, something greater, but also different.

  Ascension was a little death in some ways.

  Skill Evolution: Berserk (Adept) > Leashed Carnage (Master)

  Skill Evolution: Psycho-Cartography (Master) > Behind the Heart's Curtain (Heroic)

  Skill Fusion: Leashed Carnage (Master) - Behind the Heart's Curtain (Heroic) > Sage of the Enkindled Heart (Heroic)

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart 104 (Heroic)

  Feats: 4/6

  Shiv breathed in. As the skills melted together, he felt his emotions expand. They meshed and fused over his blood vessels, his sinews, and seeped into his skin. A faint aura of shivering flame radiated out from him, and he felt his anger become palpable, tangible, wieldable. No longer was he a dog on a leash, barely strong enough to resist his own emotions. He had hit a new threshold. The anger didn’t leave him—it was nested too deep and carved him too true, but he wasn’t the dog anymore. He held his own chain. He was his own man.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He decided how that fire inside would burn.

  "Fucking Maiden. Fucking Ascendants. Fucking System." Shiv spat every word with unparalleled calmness and incandescent anger. He was in a state where he was fully aware of just how much fury there was inside him, but also had little difficulty channeling it, containing it. He had only been a steel box before, melting from the conflagration within. Now, he was a furnace. Hate and anger were his contents, and he bore the temperature with ease.

  As he did that, he faced a few other emotions with impossible clarity. Things he hadn’t noticed before were clear to him, like a ray of light finally piercing through a thick layer of dark clouds.

  Shiv was jealous of his Legendary-Tier frying pan. Jealous because he was castrated, reduced from the chef he was, forced to rely on a piece of equipment to finish his cooking for him. And that seemed like the greatest insult of all, one that the System took delight in inflicting upon him.

  Shiv had once heard a Slayer say, "If you want to kill a swordsman, put your blade through his head. If you want to ruin his soul, cut his arms away and leave him alive."

  That's how the Deathless felt right then: crippled, reduced, ruined.

  Veins of red crawled over Shiv’s eyes. He was so mad that his body shook. But he didn’t do anything. Not just yet. Instead, he harnessed that rage, and it made him think better—being furious didn’t just increase his physical size now, it sharpened his emotional intellect to a razor’s edge. The madder he got, the larger his muscles and bones expanded, but there was also a shadowy fire that flickered at the center of his eyes—one that belied the building intuition that had been forged into him.

  For the first time, Sage of the Enkindled Heart spoke to him.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Ah. Fear. Fear of loss. Fear of change. We should fear these things. We should. But we can feel strong emotions and act rationally at the same time. These two things are not exclusive. We are not an animal. We are more than a monster. This anger is ours. Maiden gave it to us. And someday, we will use it to burn her heart to cinders. For now, focus on delivering this meal to our friends here. And speaking of…

  Shiv turned, and he noticed something new. Within the chests of the Faebread surrounding him were hollow pits.

  Hearts.

  They varied in size, but Shiv could sense them, feel them, and the dark flames of anger within his eyes yearned to spread. So he let them. And, with a flash of dark fire, the wrath poured free from his eyes.

  The Anointed One, who'd just taken a heavy step toward Shiv, suddenly twisted back, clutching his chest. Darkness poured free from it in a rising column, and the unnatural dawn hovering over him flickered as its incessant laughter transformed into confused screaming. “What… is… this!” the Knight of the Summer Court snarled, his words interrupted by ragged gasps.

  All across the room, the other fae began folding over and howling with shrieks of anger.

  And here, the Deathless discovered their unfortunate weakness.

  Shiv couldn’t hurt the Anointed Knight. Physically. But this wasn’t physical. This was just Shiv offering his new friend a light.

  “What have you done to us…” The Anointed Knight tried to rise, tried to bring his halberd to bear, but he clawed at himself and let out an unwilling, guttural shout as he fell to one knee, his arms trembling as he drove his weapon into the ground instead.

  “Just shared a fraction of my anger,” Shiv said, speaking with perfect calmness, even if he wanted to kill everything, everyone, and break the world with his fists. “Just a taste of what I’ve been burying inside myself for a while.” Shiv clenched his teeth and focused. There was something else within him. He hadn’t had the chance to mourn so many things… His Cooking. His peace. He was constantly buried and overwhelmed, but now, he wanted to deal with that. The fires of emotion curled inside him, and a teardrop fell from his right eye. Then the left.

  A moment later, he sniffled. More drops followed. “Yeah. That’s better. I do feel bad. I wish it wasn’t like this. I wish I wasn’t constantly fucked with, attacked, bothered, and mentally disturbed. I wish I could rest my mind doing my art again. I wish. But it’s not the way it is right now. And I am not okay with that. Someone is going to suffer for this.”

  The Anointed Knight tried to rise, but then collapsed to his hands and knees entirely. “Too much! Stop! Stop! Take it back! It’s too much! I want to die!”

  “I want everyone else to die,” Shiv said. He cocked his head and shrugged. “It’s a bit dramatic, I'll admit.”

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: It’s extremely felling dramatic, but this room is magnifying our emotions, and we have been putting up with a lot for a long time. This is just a release of the sickness. And now, it’s the fae’s sickness too. Well. It seems we found another way to solve this. How unexpected. It doesn’t feel any better right now, but you’ll smile about this later when you have cooled off. Very strange Skill Fusion… I feel… Energetic. Fueled.

  His physique having been boosted dramatically by the Sage of the Enkindled Heart, Shiv crossed the distance between him and the foot of the dais in a few great strides and came to a stop before the downed Knight. One of the little Gingerbread-Knights loosed an arrow—and missed as Adam intercepted the shot and hit the Faebread first, causing it to splatter apart into crumbs.

  “Shiv!” Adam called.

  The Deathless held up a hand.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Keep Adam at bay. We want everything to break, but he doesn’t deserve this. Frankly, he’s one of the few things keeping your violence in check right now. Take care of him, even if you feel uncontrollably outraged and furious. You won’t find another one like him anywhere.

  “Give me a minute, Adam,” Shiv said, letting out a heated breath. “I just got a new skill. It’s… something that messes with emotions pretty bad.”

  A beat passed. “Yours or theirs?” Adam asked wearily.

  “Yes,” Shiv said.

  “You… sound calm,” Adam replied, unnerved. “And… were those tears?”

  “Yep. I am calm. I’m also mad enough that I want to go on a destructive suicide run against the Ascendants. Both of these things can be true at the same time. Now. Excuse me, I am going to process the loss of my cooking by making this toast-man eat my cooking.”

  On cue, his frying pan’s lid dissolved. Shiv knelt down, and the Anointed One was positively small now. Shiv was well over three meters in height and still growing. His massive hand wrapped around the Faebread's helmet, and the Shapeless Tides coursing through him were bright and large enough to open a wound that would be measured in kilometers should it be inflicted on the world.

  The fear chain between Shiv and the overwhelmed Knight was iron-hard now.

  Shape of Monstrosity 144 > 145

  The Anointed One whimpered, clutching his chest as if there was a heart there. “What… are you…”

  "Really, really godsdamn pissed off.” And despite everything, Shiv made himself smile brightly, exerting dominance over himself.

  The Challenger is delighted by your growth.

  “Now,” Shiv said, “open up that helmet. I got something for you to taste.”