Unbound-Chapter Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine – 999

"There you are," Karys said, out of breath despite not having lungs or anything resembling them. The giant metal man looked frantic as Felix descended from the Atlantes Anima to land just within the Bastion at its base. "Nearly everyone's assembled. They're waiting on you, my Lord."

Felix stretched his shoulders, twisting his neck to the side with a satisfying pop. He'd spent the last hour up in his Shaping Sanctum, working to push his Skills just a bit further. He'd made some gains, but not nearly enough. Six hours wasn’t as long as he’d hoped. There always felt like more yet to be done.

He walked through the Bastion’s upper halls, past temporary apartments that would someday house diplomats and visitors to the empire. Or so Karys had explained. It brought to mind their plan. "Our envoys?"

"Already left, taking with them a company of Legionnaires,” Karys said, walking beside him. “As well as a number of the Lucent Tower mages."

"Oh really? Good. Atar and Alister can keep them all in line easily enough. Did they take some of their mageguards?"

"They did. A small contingent from each Tower that joined them."

“Tier?”

“None are below Adept. Several mages are Masters.”

Felix grunted. "Depending on their reception, they might need their strength.”

“Hopefully not. A proclamation was put together and sent through the reinvigorated Seat and Seals of your vassal Territories, announcing your intentions and basic instructions.”

“None have responded?”

“Correct. If they had, Lord Knacht’s job would be far simpler.” Karys tilted his enormous head toward Felix, towering over him yet still deferential. “Were all of your preparations completed?"

"All that I could expect to wrap up, yeah.” He’d have liked to push his Skills into Paragon but not only did he not have his Core Manifestion figured out, but his Skill levels hadn’t budged. “Seems like I’m out of time.”

Karys gestured toward a set of double doors leading out of the Bastion. "They have assembled to hear you."

Karys ushered Felix out onto a balcony that overlooked the gardens around the Bastion…and the walled edge of the cliff. Below, clinging to the rock face, were dozens of houses, crafted from Fiendstone and bored into the surface. At its base was the Foot, where the River Eile split through to the east, winding through the land and shaping the northern edge of the city. The Foot was the smallest of the districts, dedicated only to the houses of city officials and some of the earliest citizens. It was not made for crowds.

“That is a lot of people,” Pit chirruped.

Filling the Foot and spilling outward into the wide marketplaces of the Scale District were people. They stood in cramped clumps, along the edges of buildings, on stoops, and in every free space available. Even the Legion had abandoned their orderly lines to fit their numbers as close to the cliffs as they could manage. Thousands of faces peered up into the Atlantes’ canopy, hunting for something as they talked in myriad voices that overpowered the thunder of the nearby waterfall. All of the Races of mortalkind were there, shoulder to shoulder with Nagafolk, giants, Henaari, Yttin, the Chimera—the list went on—all of the peoples Felix fought alongside in his short time on the Continent.

All the people you saved, Pit sent with a proud nudge.

A list of names flashed through Felix’s indelible memory, all of them marked in blood. A list that had grown so much longer since Amaranth. It could have been more. He straightened. I’ll not make the same mistakes again.

The Bastion stood far from the people, but his Perception easily picked out the gleam in the eyes of the eager crowd as the first of them spotted him. A wave of anticipation rolled through the collective Spirit below him. It wasn’t just his Legion or even just Tempered warriors and mages. All of the citizens of Elderthrone were out in force. Mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, everyone that was not fit for battle filled the streets to bursting. Many held aloft obviously hand-crafted banners of blue edged with gold, each bearing the House symbol of Nevarre. The crown and the burning eye was shake as a cheer spread like wildfire.

Untempered or not, their voices were enough to hit him like a wall of sound. When the others joined it only grew more intense. Felix had long since gotten used to being in charge of other people, but it wasn’t often that he was faced with the sheer number of people he was responsible for—and this was only one city. His capital, certainly, but nowhere near the largest of the settlements in his Empire.

“Empire. Yeesh.” He scowled at Karys. “You sure I need to do this?”

Felix had simply wanted to vanish once his preparations were complete, but his Chancellor had vetoed that idea nearly immediately.

"They need to hear from you," Karys insisted. "They go now to put everything they have on the line. The least you could do is to put courage in their hearts."

“And remember hold your head up high,” Pit barked, pushing to his small puppy paws. “Ooh! Cover yourself in those cool scales! You’re the Emperor now. Gotta look the part.”

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"What about you?" Felix eyed his friend. “Why the Mask?”

His Companion glanced down at himself. “A Dire Hound takes up a lot less space on that stage down there.”

“Why not put on a show and fly down?”

Pit yawned. “I’m sleepy and full. Not to mention that I’m gonna have to do so much flying soon.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Right. I’ll get us down then. Karys, would you like me to help you too?”

"If you wouldn't mind, my Lord."

Pit leaped into Felix's arms. The Dire Hound pup was no larger than a large cat, though he retained a good chunk of his weight. Felix barely noticed.

Sonata of Dominance.

Wind rose around all three of them, congealing into something more than just kinetic force. Water threaded through it as well, singing at the edge of Felix's intent. His control, his Will, held them both, pulling pieces of earth along with it. While his Skill level remained the same, his time in the Sanctum had been useful, revealing several truths he’d long intuited but hadn’t put into conscious practice.

Shaping wasn’t just commanding elements into the forms he wanted. Skills did that well enough, but shaping was something beyond the System—it harkened to a time when magi touched the flow of magic and used it directly. Shaping was about moving multiple elements together, combining them into new configurations like he had with his Fiendstone. Nothing in the world was one element. Even the water in the Eile was mixed with earth and shadow and life, along with dozens of others too obtuse to name. In fact, the element categorizations felt almost arbitrary—useful for activating simplified Skills and little else. Only in tandem did they achieve anything important.

It was delicate work, but soon power solidified beneath the three of them, lifting Karys and Felix off the balcony on a near invisible platform of Mana. A nudge of his Will sent them over the edge to descend into the city below. People shouted, their fervor growing into something nearly physical that battered into his shaped Mana, and Felix had to flare his weaving to keep it from unraveling.

At the base of the staircase leading into the Imperial Palace, a Fiendstone ledge was waiting. It had been prepped earlier, while Felix was still running around the city, and a ring of Legionnaires stood at its base. His friends were all arrayed on the steps nearby. Vess, Harn, and Evie were at the front, each of them dressed in their best armor, while the Unbound filled the space behind them with their varying bulk and impressive outfits. Even Gabby wore an incredible, polished set of orichalcum plate. It was a shame that Atar and Alister had left early, much as it was needed, because Atar would have loved preening in front of an audience.

The three of them landed on the Fiendstone perch and Felix banished his shaping. The crowd pressed closer.

"Hey, everybody," Felix said, immediately feeling a bit dumb. The crowd went silent and he managed a sheepish smile. "It's not lost on me that this is the second time we've assembled for war in the last week. Before it was Amaranth. The Hierophant was there and she brought before us not just the three Orders, but the very might of the gods themselves were marshaled to stop us. They failed."

The crowd roared. Enthusiasm bubbled up in a rush of giddy Spirit and tense nerves. Felix let it build for a bit longer. He raised his voice, speaking through the tumult.

"Now we head into the jungles of Jaast, where the Hierophant has fled. She's found allies there, and her power has grown from what it was—she is more than a Paragon now. Yet just as before, I am here to tell you that it won’t be enough. The fangs of our empire have latched onto her, reducing her stats and power so long as she remains an enemy of our people. It is the same power that courses through you all, lifting each of you up with their passive bonuses. We will use them, and all tools at our disposal, to end her.

“Yet she is by far our weakest foe. We will end the Hierophant, but it is only to clear the board so that we can face the true Threat."

Felix pointed up into the evening sky. The sun was still strong, the sky still blue, but it did not obfuscate or dim the dark flame that burned in the heavens. It hung, an eighth of the size of the distant moons—far larger than it was only that morning.

"The Ruin is almost here," Felix said, and for once the masses were silent. "The task before us is immense. To say otherwise is crazy. All of us go now to face down a Threat to our lives and the lives of everyone we love. The so-called Divine have turned on us and the sky itself hosts the Ruin."

Felix paused. The crowd’s enthusiasm had died on the vine. There was still a passionate well of emotion swirling among them, but it had the stink of fear now. He sighed. He hadn't really planned what he was going to say, and speeches didn’t come naturally to him, but he refused to leave them without something more.

Put courage in their hearts. Right.

"I didn't set out to make an empire," Felix said after a long moment. "I had no intention of leading anyone. I arrived not far from here, soaking wet and nearly dead, and I just tried to survive. Alone and bloody, I made my way through these forests, carving out a space for myself with every step I took. I was alive certainly, but it wasn’t long before I realized that survival wasn't enough. It took meeting a small tenku in mortal danger to realize that."

The Dire Hound pup barked, drawing a laugh from the crowd. Joy spread from his Companion, a ripple of contagious delight that drew smiles from the audience. Fear receded just a touch.

“I risked my life for him, and he has repaid that a thousandfold times. I didn't know that's where it would lead. How could I? Each choice, small as they were, mattered. That’s the thing about choices: they build up, until you can no longer deny the shape of things. I don’t believe in destiny or fate, but it’s true that we are the architects of our futures. I stand here today because of an avalanche of consequences started by a single, compassionate decision.”

The mood of the crowd had shifted now. The fear wasn’t gone, but it had turned brittle.

“I've risked my life for many things.” Felix looked to the stairs. “Friends. Family. Strangers too. I tried to do what’s right at every turn. To care for those I could, because what else is power for? It is true that we’re fighting for survival. The Hierophant would end us given half a chance, and the gods see us as nothing but insects beneat their heels. The Ruin…it would erase even the memory of us and think nothing of it.

“This fight is more than survival, though. All of us are fighting for our future. We're fighting for the hope that things are better than this. Better than petty power squabbles, and a bloody end on the claws of a monster, or a self-entitled noble, drunk on Authority. All of us have the right to survive. More than that: all of us deserve to live.”

Felix lifted his chin as scales crawled across his torso, the midnight black plates folding into place as he grew to his full, Sovereign of Flesh-ed height. “We are what stands between this world and the Ruin itself. We are the shield and the sword that the Continent raises to the heavens, and we are here to tell them no more. That even if the sky itself falls down upon us, we will. Not. Break.”

The cheer that shook Elderthrone knocked dust from the eaves of its buildings, sent birds fleeing into the air, and shook small stones from the cliff face. Tempered lungs, one and all, exulted in a flurry of rage, fear, and strangest of all, hope.