Some people like to say: “Better the devil that you know than the devil that you don’t.”
This statement is bullshit.
I know a lot of devils, and I will be System-cursed before I do any kind of business with them again. They’re devils for a reason, and if you think the unknown is terrifying, I encourage you to refresh your memory and remind yourself that a Pathless can understand a cave troll perfectly well and still be afraid of it. Because it’s a godsdamn three-meter-tall hairy monster that sees in the dark and will pull your arms off as a greeting!
Sometimes, it’s better to take a chance on what you don’t know, because choosing the devil that you know will just make you dead anyway.
—Memoirs of a Master-Tier Wage Mage
VIII-20
Closer (II)
In any other circumstance, Shiv would’ve found himself distracted—then amused—by the title of “Gate Piety Dick-Ripper.” But something else stole the totality of his focus instead.
The Breaker flinched back, staggering away from Shiv with an expression of bombastic outrage. It was as if Shiv’s words had pierced his heart and left him in the process of bleeding out. He seethed from his nostrils, the sharp tusks jutting out from his underbite raised high as he hyperventilated and shook. A series of deep, incoherent sputters followed, but this wasn't actually speechlessness born of pure rage.
Through all that theater, the Breaker didn’t develop the slightest crack upon his person. Not even the faintest of hair-thin fractures.
The orc reeled back, gestured and mimed offense and outrage, but it was all a performance. Nothing about his actions was true. His heartbreak was written upon his face, but, ironically, altogether absent from his heart.
“His offense is just a masquerade. In fact, Everything about him is a performance,” the Harbinger realized. “That armor he wears doesn't even seem to be enchanted. It's more of a costume than it is protection.” Through the skill’s latent powers, Shiv gazed at the orc‘s empathic core and the faint whirlpool of psionic thought that spread out from and twisted around his biological mind. “He feels the same about us as we do about him right now: fascination, wariness. He's trying to gauge what kind of enemy we are as we try to discover his true nature first. Yet, he might be the lesser danger in the equation standing before us…”
The Breaker, who proclaimed himself to be the Jingoist, whatever that was, continued to huff and puff and glare at Shiv. He turned his head skyward, bellowing things like "outrageous," "unthinkable," "disgusting." He promised revenge, his voice incoherent growls and hisses, his muscles bulging and straining, the metal that shrouded his skin groaning as it was deformed before his overwhelming strength. In the backdrop, the strange, invisible narrator continued hyping up the conflict at hand—doing everything he could to build up a forthcoming grudge between the Dick-Ripper, who'd come to break bones and twist nipples in the name of his Gate, and the Jingoist, who fought to represent his people and supposedly for the Challenger's honor.
But the Breaker was the thunder, the noise, the distraction. He was powerful, perhaps, but the threat he posed moved in sync with Corcusa, and that made them both a magnitude more dangerous. He was trying to lure Shiv’s attention, provoke him into acting, throw him off with all these antics, with all these absurd statements and actions.
Meanwhile, Corcusa stared at Shiv without a whit of emotion or expression on her face.
Most people could hold to a facade of stoicism for a few moments, but she unnerved Shiv for a greater reason.
She didn't have an emotional core.
It wasn't hidden or veiled like Veronica’s, or shrouded like that of some other Pathbearer who possessed an extreme measure of social competence.
No, she simply lacked a core entirely. In fact, her thoughts were mere puffs of translucent mist as well. They were like a passing fog rather than a dense cloud, and that hinted at a more concerning reality: that this wasn't her true body, or that she was receiving thoughts from elsewhere. The depth of her emotions and the root of her soul were not standing before him. However her skills worked, the ran deep into the dark embrace of mystery—and meanwhile, both blades she had sheathed along her waist ebbed with overwhelming anger and anguish. It was as if a tidal wave of feelings were embroiled within those thin lengths of metal.
Shiv squinted. Awakened weapons. Like Rusty, maybe.
The Legend-Assassin herself stood in contrast not only to the other vampires but also to Uva. Describing the sight of an Embraced Umbral as rare wouldn't do it justice. Not nearly. Shiv had killed tens of thousands of vampires in the past months, and never had he seen a single Umbral among them. It was an understandable thing. After all, elevating a member of a cattle caste to the lofty heights of your elite society was a bit like naming a random pig on your farm a member of your family and inheritor to your belongings. A Bloodline Progenitor themselves being the one to elevate an Umbral, then, was as if the King of a vaunted nation was the one to choose the pig as his very heir.
The uniqueness of this origin nakedly defined Corcusa. She could not hide. Her posture was perfect. She didn't shudder or glance. She was as if a refined weapon, gleaming in the light, stalwart before any impending threat, a spear posed against the Deathless' unbreakability. Caring not that she might shatter if driven against him, willing to plunge all the same, if only to gain a measure of his true durability and discover if the truth of his feats could compare to the shadow cast by his folklore.
Though her empathic core was absent, Shiv's ability to read people by their body language and their actions and non-actions had far improved since the months prior. Everything someone did betrayed a little bit about them. Not choosing to do anything sometimes was as much a statement as reaching across. She didn't fear him. There was no performance on her part, much to her detriment. The Breaker was doing a good job trying to throw Shiv off, even if he wasn't fully successful. Corcusa lacked the same incompetence. There wasn't even the slightest faintness of spreading black around her person. His Trespasser, bringing nullified darkness, could not ascend, refused to ever grace her. Even if he brought his shadows to bear, something told Shiv she might tear through the crawling void better than almost any other.
The same fearlessness was extended to her attire. The armor she wore was carefully constructed; it resembled a forest of threaded crimson chainmail forged from blood-extracted iron, enchanted with Biomancy to become a vein-like network of animated armor that could flash and flare. Transforming and shifting with her person, should she choose to warp her flesh in the way most vampires did, acting as a malleable, flexible, skin-tight armor that accentuated her features.
And there was a fineness to her features that was sculpted to calculated perfection. Corcusa was not immense. In fact, she was half a head shorter than Uva, even before his girlfriend grew quite a bit from her skills and eldritch changes. The Embraced Umbral’s musculature and body symmetry were perfected. Yet that perfection didn't veer toward the over-sexualized, as some vampires were inclined. Most First Blood members who committed to being seductors, seductresses, and social assassins used their own physical architecture as a means to manipulate; they adjusted their forms to the tastes of their victims, expanding their breast tissue or sculpting out a round shield-like contour for the masculine torso. At the same time, they rounded their hips and rears, lengthened their legs, and shrank their abdomens to achieve a near-impossible hourglass that put pornographic paintings to shame, leaving an imprint on the minds of the perverted and lonely.
Then there were those who possessed a unique beauty all their own. Angelo was one. He did not exaggerate any of his physical features, though he was a pristine creature, made so against his volition by his elders. Corcusa was closer to him in this respect. Subtlety was the design philosophy behind her body: nothing over-exaggerated, everything perfectly proportioned, her litheness and height lending themselves to a smaller target profile, her armor hinting at an avoidant style of combat—not built for taking sustained damage at all.
All Umbrals held a complexion comparable to ivory moonlight glistening at the midnight hour. Corcusa kept that effect and simply added a faint glow to her power, accentuating her nature as an outsider among the vampires while also making herself seem like a polished blade. Her makeup was minimal and all too much at the same time, her lipstick far too red, capable of masking any blood that dripped from her teeth. Her eye shadow was scalpel-thin—barely noticeable, but there.
The shape of her face was also that of a teardrop, smooth and soft in certain areas, round and inviting in others. She was using her charisma and physical charm on him from the moment he walked in. Doubtlessly, she knew about Uva and was trying to distract him along the axis of lust. It didn't work; it wouldn't have worked even if he lacked the Harbinger. She was far too different from Uva, and the moment he walked in here, he felt something else pass between them. It was like looking at someone who was a bit like himself.
Valor is right, Shiv realized. There was the scent. That hint of danger. The feeling of another monster capable of assuming the mantle of an individual at a moment's notice.
Both Shiv and Corcusa tilted their heads slightly, the inclines almost imperceptible but asymmetrically aligned in a way that marked their fated opposition.
“I see, and I see you,” she whispered. She carefully took a half step back, as if realizing her mistake. She'd come too close, regardless, even if this wasn't her true body. She shouldn't be in his proximity. No one should be in his proximity. No one should ever let him lay hands upon them or let him sink a word into their heart.
“I see you too,” Shiv replied, ignoring the Breaker as he began smacking Shiv over the back of the head with a dead chicken he'd grabbed from somewhere. His Harbinger flickered around him. He summoned his Last Morsel to hand. “I see both of you,” Shiv emphasized.
Halfway through his routine, the Breaker’s posture sagged, and he sighed. A genuine sigh this time, an emotion of flooding exasperation pushing against Shiv's Harbinger like a typhoon, which soon turned into genuine annoyance. Even his voice went down to normal decibels. “Yeah, yeah, you're not a stupid animal! Great, perfect, wonderful, incredible performance! Oh, you got the Harbinger of Tripartite Ruin! You got a Pre-Legendary Skill! You're so socially intelligent! Oh, your time spent among the orcs has made you so good at figuring out how to spot tells and dangers in people! Oh, you're so impressive, Deathless! Mwah, mwah, mwah!” Sarcasm collapsed into downright vulgarity as the Breaker began miming a fellatio at Shiv. “You need to stop taking this stuff so seriously. I mean it. I really mean it. I'm out here trying to bring a little bit of joy to all our lives, and you're over there—oh, you just have to show off. Come on, play along. It's the last chance we've got. Little people don’t get to make big choices—so make the small ones you can.”
Shiv looked the orc up and down as if seeing him for the first time. He smirked slightly, but his humor was mocking, his gaze insulting. “Well, there you are, Breaker. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but to be honest, I still don’t give a shit. What's with this whole "offended" clown routine anyway?”
“I'm building up hype, brother,” the Breaker said, folding his arms. “I'm building up hype that you and I are gonna need when we get bloody down the line. And we are gonna get bloody down the line. You make no mistake about this. Part of it's the performance, but when the pylons go up, the ropes get linked, and the Hellcage™ is formed, only one of us is making it out. It ain't gonna be you, Deathless. It ain't gonna be you—yeah!”
“And now you're back to doing your bit,” Shiv said with a sigh. "Well, it was nice to know you briefly. See you next time when you actually show your true self again for a half second.”
The Legendary orc stuck his lower fangs out at Shiv. “Yeah? Well, I won't see you, not unless you make me. But today's your lucky day, brother. Because today is the day that you get to come by and make your account known to the Challenger. Today is the day that the fast draws to a close and the real blood starts to flow. You better have enjoyed those two months we gave you. Because you'll look back upon them fondly. What comes ahead is going to be rough, brother. It's going to be real dark and real hard! You wanna know why—”
Shiv brushed past the orc and sneered down at Corcusa as he made his way into the Tutorial. “It doesn't matter if I wanna know, and I don't care about this shit anymore. I didn't come for you. I'm here to tell the Challenger that he's effectively second fiddle now. That makes all of you… Hm. I don't think I can count that low.”
Shiv showed his back to both his Legendary enemies. Neither struck him. It was a pointless action. They knew his nature; he didn't fully know theirs. Even if they wanted to strike him down using magic and entrap him by seizing the roots of his soul, they needed to overcome his Magical Resistance first. And right now, this body of his was charged with so many Shapeless Tides that it would take even someone like Longinus at least a few hits to break all the way through—if they managed to stop him from going Backstage at all, that was.
The Tutorial was the same miserable apocalyptic death pit he remembered it being. The sky was the color of an infected wound spreading, as cracks between sour black clouds rained debris, corpses, and tar from above. The world reeked of an eternal struggle between ash, fire, burning flesh, decay, and melting rubber. Wars raged on as distant balls of fire rose over the bend of the horizon. The light cast strange shapes in the far distance. Visages of ruined husks of titanic humanoids, hollowed down to their metallic skeletons, festering with orcs that lingered among their ribs or resided within their skulls. Their biological signatures glittered like stars fallen onto land. At any moment, Shiv could hop into their perspective, and when he did, he realized that they were looking upon him, that they had flame sculptures and animated illusions playing out his person, projecting his movements from a sky-bound point of view—the Challenger's point of view, if he had to guess. And the Challenger himself was absent.
All around Shiv were new towers, rusted and brutal structures that served little artistic purpose but seemed to be something constructed to practice mock siege battles or simply out of boredom, as the orcs within wrestled and brutalized each other, filling the bottoms of each tower with nuggets—defeated orcs and victims stolen from other worlds who were dismembered of limbs, blinded of eyes, gouged of ears, and slit of tongue. They moaned and writhed and laughed in the same great pile as rotten gore was poured upon them, ensuring spreading sickness. As they died one after another, some responded while others simply slipped away.
Shiv sighed as he reeled his Awareness back. Being among the orcs was an ever-jarring experience. The Breaker played his games—was even slightly amusing, if Shiv forced himself to admit one thing he liked about the orc—but then there was this. This pointlessly cruel, vicious fate inflicted upon people who didn't deserve it, and other orcs who relished in it like suffering and sportsmanship were one and the same. Should Gate Piety fall to the Challenger, should Earth itself fall, this would be the fate waiting for everyone on the other side—and this was already the fate of countless worlds, falling victim to the machinations of the God of Strife, or just his raw, overwhelming power.
And speaking of the Challenger… “Well, don't just invite me in and play the mysterious host, asshole. We're already doing this hospitality thing. Get yourself down here so I can spit in your eye.”
Rumbling laughter shook the world from above, and Shiv turned, narrowing his eyes, as a curving band of crimson electricity turned into a spiral, twisting and bending forevermore as it went along an unnatural path, becoming a screwdriver in the end before depositing the Challenger's divine Avatar mere meters away from Shiv.
The God of Strife stood manifest in the most muted form he possessed. But even this muddled state couldn't hide the fullness of his power. He reeked of bloodshed, of fire, of ash, of dying worlds. He carried with him an ambient chorus of screams, of valorous warriors roaring in unison as they sacked and butchered to their darkest revelry. Waves of killing intent crashed out from him, becoming tangible in the air as it hammered against Shiv, grinding him as a rolling pin would slide across dough.
Shiv's body grew bright, then pale, then turned platinum, as a building bruise took shape across the front of his person; merely standing before the Challenger bore its own price. A normal Legend would have suffered a series of contusions by this point, even if they were possessed of Legendary-Tier Toughness; a Tarrasque might have been able to endure with their adaptive shell, but even then, the weight was constant. Shiv drove his anti-Dicinity-layered Tides in the direction of the Challenger and held himself in place. He refused to be pushed back, not so casually. He wasn't a victim—the Challenger could be the greatest of gods, could carry the power of an entire universe. That didn't change the fact that Shiv was a Legend, had earned his legend twice over.
A tiger might have no hope in the face of a falling hurricane, but before that point of death, a tiger was a tiger still.
“Bruiser, I bid you welcome to my Tutorial once more. How did you enjoy making an acquaintance with your rival Insul—and the one who will teach you grief?” The Challenger lifted his once-missing hand, and the transplanted appendage, made from two entwined limbs of golden glory, gestured toward the sky with ten pointed fingers. For whatever reason, the Challenger didn't fully assimilate the Starhawk’s stolen limbs. The incongruity and the purity mixed with that body born of war-scarred tissue, of burning pits filled with writhing bodies, just didn't seem right.
“Insul,” Shiv grunted. His near growl broke down to a laugh. He regarded the God of Strife from the corner of his eye. “Do you even know what she is? You just chose her on a whim?”
“Never on a whim. But the same question can be turned back upon you. I always know what birds I keep in my cage. But do you know whose cage you find yourself lost within?”
“He knows,” the Harbinger whispered.
Shiv smiled softly. Of course he godsdamn knows. He's the Challenger. He's the God of Strife. He's been fighting the rest of Integration since System knows when. The Faceless Queen was arrogant if she ever thought this plan was going to succeed.
“Well, that's part of the reason why I'm here. I wanna make sure that this thing between you and me goes on just fine. I want this Holy War to take shape so that I can be the one that kills you in the end. Me or Adam. Personally, I am still in a bit of a competition with him. You see, at the rate I'm growing, in, I don't know, give it a few centuries, it'll be me and you instead of me and one of your bastards.”
The Challenger grinned and tilted his head. “Centuries. Hm. How tardy. Why not decades?”
“Figured you should have a little time to think and regret before that final end,” Shiv said.
“But what if I used that time to prepare myself? What if I take you seriously, Deathless? What if I'm the one who emerges victorious? What do you think I will do to you? I don't know if I desire to bring you to an end. You seem so precious, and there is so much potential in you. But those around you, aside from the Paragon, what might I be able to do with them if you fail in your defiance?”
“Piss me off,” Shiv answered. “That’s what will come of that. Come on, Challenger. You know me better than that. Don't treat me like a person. Trauma doesn’t stop me.”
“Oh, but it does warp you. And I think I will treat you like a person, because that's why you're so dangerous. You're a monstrous person, a personable monster, capable of reaching the heights of both. That's something terrifyingly beautiful, wouldn't you agree?”
Suddenly, Shiv stopped, and he glanced at the Breaker nearby. Slowly, he lifted a hand and replicated the action the Breaker performed on him earlier. “Mwah, mwah, mwah,” Shiv said slowly, rotating and moving his hands up and down atop one another. “Using me to suck yourself off, huh?”
“Nothing so vulgar. It is simply a boast we can both share, but I suppose what we can't share is enlightenment. That's why you're here, is it not? You think yourself capable of perhaps jousting with me verbally and intellectually until you discover something, and at the end you might be able to get away without any consequence or cost.”
The Challenger smacked his lips and shook his head. “Please, do take me seriously, Bruiser. Everything has a cost. You want to know about what took that shot at you, yes? The star? The thread? The enigmatic nonsense spewed by the cowards hiding under their little dome in Stolen Africa? And most importantly, you want to know if they're right about the Faceless Queen and what kind of threat she truly poses. If this mythology they've spun about your enemy is true, by what means might you prevail against a foe so overwhelming?”
“Well, since you already know all that, why don't you get started on the lecture? I'm all ears.” Shiv folded his arms and shrugged. “And if you want some blood in exchange for this, well—”
“No need to be hasty. There will be blood between us soon enough, but as for your adversary and the Faceless Queen, I think I will keep some things to silence. It will be more amusing, watching you grope blindly in the dark, only to realize far too late that all your information was out of context and that you were missing an essential realization." The Challenger let out a low breath. “I will give you this one lesson, free of charge. You must consider one thing in life. Many of those you talk to will present themselves as experts of a certain subject matter. But how do you actually know that they are experts? How do you know that they are not just charlatans caught in their own lies?”
“By coming to the biggest and most powerful bastard I know and asking him head-on, because why would he lie to me unless he is afraid of this unseen, unknowable, enigmatic enemy?” Shiv guessed.
The Challenger threw his head back and gave a jovial laugh. The vigor behind his joy hammered into Shiv and would have turned him into a bloodied stain without the Onus. Even so, Shiv went utterly rigid and then lost all ability to move. Just a laugh, and he was still trapped in a husk of platinum, his Toughness binding him in place. But he was still alive, and so he could still listen. He waited for the orc to continue.
“Strategic flattery followed by a well-poised insult. You truly are becoming your grandmother's special little boy. Alas, Veronica Chandler is no more a player than you are in your present circumstance. She was your superior, perhaps, but she is out of her depth when it comes to the present. You are out of your depth as well, but perhaps, unlike her and most of your little friends, you have a chance to survive." The Challenger leaned down.
“You, my Nemesis, and the Seeker. But everyone else, the rest of your world... A terrible thing has been waiting for this coming moment for a very, very long time. And you made a tragic mistake. One you couldn't have possibly known to avoid. You gave it a glimpse of yourself, and now it knows.”
“It knows what?” Shiv said. A swell of irritation burned inside of him, but was suppressed by the Harbinger before it could enter his voice.
“Well, where you are, for one. Besides that…”
The Challenger pointed upward, and as Shiv followed the gesture, he realized a patch of clouds was parting. Like a few times before, a clearing formed in the firmament, exposing the cosmos beyond.
And Shiv went rigid as he beheld a star glaring down upon him, a star that was encoiled by strands of gleaming metal, by shifting bands that formed a mask of misted steel, its presence pressing against him in a tangible tide of awareness and paranoia and emotion. He saw the star. He gazed at the core at its center, and what a marvel it was! What a drowning symphony of screams, trillions of voices fused into one, willing and not, bound under a single, post-tyrannical will!
Just beyond the stratosphere of the Tutorial, Avalon hung over Shiv, casting its glow upon the land, the Challenger, and the Deathless himself.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Aptly said. Now, let me show you something.” Then the Challenger lifted his stolen arm, but Shiv wasn't listening anymore. He dove Backstage—just as the living star fired.
The Deathless crashed out of context and only then realized the girl was staring up. Trapped in a state of awestruck disbelief, she didn't shout, voiced no warnings, gave no indication that she had seen this coming. And then, his own mind went off-course and crashed into a gutter as the threads came down.
Not a single strand of radiance was aimed at him, however. The space he occupied remained unblemished.
Meanwhile, the Challenger himself and every orc across the Tutorial was threaded. The needles at the end struck them, fracturing them, creating fractals from their persons as reality parted and broke and folded into layered directions.
After that… things got confusing.