Chapter 87

Name: NOT APPLICABLE

Race: Cthulle 

Bloodline: NOT APPLICABLE

Titles: Denizen of the Void, Lofty Pedigree

Body Mutation: Standard Brute—[Toughened Hide, Enhanced Musculature, Reinforced Bones.]

Resonance Pillar: Traveled Copper [0 of 50]

Body: 10 Celestial Dew (10,400 Celestial Essence)

Mind: 4 Celestial Dew (4900 Celestial Essence)

Spirit: 5 Celestial Dew (5320 Celestial Essence)

Insight: 1 Celestial Dew (1009 Celestial Essence)

Martial Alignment: NOT APPLICABLE

Substantive Alignment: NOT APPLICABLE

Conceptual Alignment: Concept of Null (3rd Aspect)

Talents: Robust Frame (0 Stars), Curse of Myriad Tongues (0 Stars)

Core Grade: Uncommon 

Core Capacity: 2 of 3

Mutation Points: 300

Mortal Potential: 375,500 Points

Titles: Denizen of the Void—born of the void, not only do you find yourself at home within its dark embrace, but you carry aspects of the void along with you, wherever you go.

Allows for the weightless traversal, normally exclusive to void dwellers, to be used outside of the void.

Lofty Pedigree—being born the direct descendant of a risen ascendant comes with its unique set of advantages.

+1000 Mutation Points, +1 Common Core (MAXED)

Talents: Robust Frame—(Passive Effect): Resiliency is worth more than is indicated. Curse of Myriad Tongues—(Passive Effect): You speak with the voices of all those lost to silence.

Techniques: Quick Step, Reverberating Strike.

Mantras: Null Aura—Nothing takes shape; all things become null. Null Spark—Far is close; nothing takes shape—all things become null.

***

A streamer of red mist, Jun took off like a firework. Launching straight upwards, past the blockade, to spear through the very heavens themselves. Climbing as far and as fast as his willpower allowed, he crossed hundreds of paces in the space of a breath. 

Unencumbered by friction, he flew. Soared. Until the telltale spike of pain told him he’d gone long enough. His body swiftly reformed, coalescing from shifting vapors in a swirling, nigh instantaneous display.

Airborne, weightless, at least for the time being, he immediately snapped his head down—anxious and just the smallest bit hopeful. It wasn’t long before his newly formed eyes finally adjusted, and, as they focused on the distant figures down below, a palpable relief washed over and through him. He’d traveled even farther than he’d thought himself capable. Perfect.

Far below him, the clumped up gathering of void dwellers scattered, looking to him like a murder of crows startled into motion, a cloud of flies buzzing in clear agitation. It took barely a second for them to realize where he’d gone. 

Impressive. Disheartening. 

But then again, a second was all he’d really needed. The black tide of bodies surged upwards, spiraling around one another in their rapid ascent. An upside down funnel with one scar faced Cthulle with too much to prove, spearheading the charge. Because of course he was. They rose in rapid succession, moving at such insane speeds, that they punched several dozen perfectly shaped holes through the cloud bank slowly drifting below. 

And him at the apex of his jump, no less, no longer buoyed by his previous momentum.

He begins to fall, then, miraculously, he doesn’t. Astral flesh and bones scatter like ash to the wind, a ruby red mist swiftly rising to take its place. Immediately the world is robbed of specificity. Sight, sound, smell, taste, even touch to some degree. All significantly reduced. Boiled down to a single, tactile sensation, itself bordering on a sixth sense. 

The world now seen in varying degrees of sharpness, a finely honed gradient—from soup spoon dull, to a razor’s edge. Both literally, and in the figurative sense. His awareness locking onto the keenest source in an instant. The wicked spike of wrathful intent like a red bonfire in his mind.

A naked blade poised above his unprotected nape, waiting, no, positively impatient for the beheading. With a second burst of speed, he climbs ever higher, putting as much distance between himself and that sharp blade of unbridled animosity as was inhumanly possible. Willing to throw himself at the mercy of the heavenly storm that raged up above, if it meant he had even a chance of survival.

The next time he reformed—summoned with a twist, then flash, a flutter of the hem—Scarface and his procession were very nearly upon him. Nearly, because at the last possible instant, he’d drastically altered his trajectory. Diverging completely from the beaten path. Glowing red streamer turning on a dime—at a sharp, ninety degree angle—and continuing on without even the slightest drop in speed. 

Changing his direction instantaneously, in that way only something entirely unmoored by laws so trivial as “velocity,” can. So that, when he emerged, momentarily weightless, it was a hundred paces away from reaching, grasping hands. Scarface, in all his haste, now exactly where he ought to be. And in that way, directly in the line of fire.

WHOOSH!

One second Scarface was there, grasping at air where Jun should’ve been, and the next he was gone, carried off and away by a stone ballistae moving too fast to track. Nailed to the flat of the massive pillar, one which dwarfed the hulking, battle mad Cthulle like a whale might compare to a minnow. 

The knightly cohort’s aerial barrage was in full swing, it would seem, and, unfortunately for his many witless pursuers, they now found themselves smack dab in the middle of it. He sent out a silent prayer, hoping against all hope that was the last he’d see of the persistent creature, though he knew in his heart of hearts it wasn’t meant to be. Then the aerial barrage caught up with him, and he was forced to quickly evade.

Body’s Temple | Cutting Evasion

What followed was a harried, hyperactive blur, wherein he led the rest of the trailing voidling’s a merry little chase. Cutting and weaving between elemental storms—natural disasters and grand monoliths masquerading as projectiles. Narrowly evading an arctic tsunami one second, only to be blindsided by a spear of holy fire the next. He skimmed beneath a lake given bestial form—a serpentine dragon whose roar somehow was the rushing river. 

Hugging its side, barely an arms length away, as he helplessly careened, falling ever onward—waiting for his mantra to finally come off cooldown. Flecks of foam gently spattering his face, and with it the salty smell of oceanic spray, while a monsoon constantly poured from its massive underbelly—turning the grasslands below into even more of a sucking mire.

Body’s Temple | Cutting Evasion

He bobbed around flowing constructs of fire—flaming equine cavalry, manes flowing and hearts aflutter—which charged forth on steps made of smoldering air. Slipped between writhing root systems. Sheered through bolts of shadow. Avoided lightning. Skirting wind storms, metal storms, and clouds of plague like they were, well, like they were the plague. And all the while the mad bunch hounding after him thinned, ever so gradually, in the chasing.

One died to rapid deterioration, caught in the aforementioned plague cloud as they were. It’s skin beginning to pockmark, then it’s muscle to deflate, before its flesh began to slough off the bone wholesale. It’s body decaying in real time, before they dropped from the sky, dead well before they hit the ground. 

Three more were smashed flat, caught between two massive slabs of stone—having made the cardinal sin of following an incorporeal being into a rapidly narrowing crevice. Another, constantly nipping at his heels, entered a passing bolt of shadow whilst in hot pursuit, and, for whatever reason, never returned.

All in all, by the time their big brother swooped in to put an end to his fun, he had to have dropped ten or more of the creatures. Would’ve been eleven, had he been given the chance—there was this electrical storm he’d been building up the courage to take a run at. Unfortunately, when his fun having privileges were revoked, it happened quite suddenly, and without any warning.

***

Eldest of his brood, the so-called “Scarface”—one whose every achievement would forever be marred by the first and greatest of his failures: his own birth—fixed his lone-eyed gaze on the despicable creature that’d given him his second ever defeat in living memory. A physical reminder to reflect the soul deep scars, the rounding error that was his continued existence.

“NULL SPARK.”

From between his palms, a twisting bolt of null energy arced. A thing without form, nor scent, nor perception. Neither the existence of matter, nor its antithesis, but instead the bland nothing that lived in between. It held no shape but what he gave it, and never for very long. Always insistent, ever eager, to return to the bland nothingness from whence it came.

Far is close; nothing takes shape—all things become null.

Scarface tracked the elusive creature, trailing at a distance—behind cover whenever possible—as it darted around this way and that. His prey moved unpredictably. Slipping between one grand obstacle after another. Switching directions at speeds that boggled the mind. And all the while he hovered. Watching. Waiting as it led his siblings to their deaths. 

One after another, like lambs to the slaughter. Wanton butchery. Senseless brutality. Though he let not a flicker of emotion mar his expression. He was beyond that. Below it. In the space in-between. All was nothing. All was null. Instead he remained patient, waiting for that single, fleeting second. That brief moment of greatest vulnerability. 

Abruptly, the glowing stream of mist darted to the left—taking refuge in the shadow of a titan made of stone. Its details either worn away, or made intentionally vague. It’s surface thoroughly cracked, fissures festering with lichen. Flitting up the side, the mist alighted on a wide shoulder. Whereupon it pooled, grew, solidified.

FINALLY!

Nothing arced, crossed the chasm separating them in an instant. What was speed to the concept of null, after all? What was distance? Null spark struck true. The creature spasmed as its world turned bland, the good and the bad turned to naught but dust, bland ash in its mouth. 

Its hopes of escape worn away to nothing. 

And just like that, one of its abilities was, at least temporarily, annulled—stricken from this particular fight completely. He didn’t know how the creature had survived his null pressure before this—a third defeat to mark his seemingly unending string of failures. There would not be a fourth time, however. Of that much, he swore.

“QUICK STEP.”

Spiritual energy gathered, expanded out from his core, funneling to race through his pathways in convoluted spirals, knots, and other, less recognizable patterns. Circulating in an instinctual facsimile of a movement technique. In the next moment, he disappeared—leaving nothing behind in his wake—only to reappear immediately before the stunned human. Rearing, twisting, fist falling like a hammer blow, even as the dawning horror only now began to widen its eyes. No matter how much he might’ve wanted to savor this moment, he did not doddle.

“REVERBERATING STRIKE.”

Who knew what other tricks this creature had in store? Better to err on the side of caution. His fist punched forward, twice the size of the creatures skull. A second should have passed by now. Predictably, the creature reached for its movement technique, eyes only widening further when he found it beyond his reach. 

Strange…? 

By then, it shouldn’t have been capable of feeling anything at all. He empowered the blow with all the might he had at his disposal, all eighty-one points. Putting his entire body into the effort to best leverage all that strength.

When at last the strike landed, it resounded across the battlefield like the tolling of a gong. Space practically rippled, waves of force expanding, tearing outward and away in terrible undulations of force which-! 

Wait… hold on a second. A… gong…? 

Yes, that was right. His blow had rung like the sounding of a gong. Not the meaty thwack of his knuckles on soft flesh. But, that couldn’t be right, could it? It didn’t make any sense. Scarface was only given a moment to recognize the familiar glint of silver, the mirror polish of chrome, before he was thrown back with all the force he’d intended for the boy, a wail of purest frustration escaping him at long last.