The New World
Chapter 453: Shatter

It left a fearful smile on my lips, and Torix raised a hand. The armor rippled in response. It kept rippling, turning into a churning pool.

It left a fearful smile on my lips, and Torix raised a hand. The armor rippled in response. It kept rippling, turning into a churning pool.

It left a fearful smile on my lips, and Torix raised a hand. The armor rippled in response. It kept rippling, turning into a churning pool. Torix's eyes flickered. As mana surged from the body and over the horizon, the lich froze in place. Far in the distance, ice cracked, and glaciers collapsed. Elemental torrents flowed as tornadoes tore through a dead and dying land. The air howled. The ground wailed. A darkened miasma infested our surroundings, and Torix turned to me.

He grasped the sides of his skull before raising his head. The jaw slackened before he took in an unneeded breath. Within his voice, the sound of sheering metal echoed.

And Torix screamed.

I ran up and placed a hand on the barrier of the rite.

"What's wrong?"

Torix turned to me, his body oozing mana.

"There is...Too much mana."

I grimaced, knowing all too well how much of a torrential downpour my armor could generate. Still, this shouldn't be happening. I shook a hand in frustration.

"Stop trying to generate the mana. Quit calling on it."

His eyes fluttered in chaotic sparks. His jaw slackened entirely, and the body fell like a puppet with its strings cut. Torix turned his slackened face to me.

"I'm...I'm not making the mana...It is."

I peered at his new golem body, fear and wrath settling in my chest like the last flickers of coals keeping darkness at bay. I raised an arm and pressed Event Horizon onto the metal. Torix let out a gasp.

"It...It hurts."

I pulled my aura back. Torix shook his head.

"I...I need the pain."

My hands gripped harder than stones as I urged my wake back over him. Torix's head rolled back, his crown of thorns falling from his skull.

"Disciple. It's...It's like I'm drowning."

A shiver raced up my spine. I took a breath, getting a better feel for Event Horizon. The skill was always separated into two different parts. The physical and mental. Right here and now, I needed both halves working in tandem, but only against the golem, not Torix. Wondering what the hell to do, another Daniel pushed me out of the commanding position.

I condensed Event Horizon, squeezing it over Torix. He let out a low growl, his voice agonizing to my ears. The voice turned into a weak murmur.

"Who am I?"

I blinked, my eyes burning at the sight of him. With all my will, I compressed Event Horizon over him to its fullest extent. I funneled it to the shape of his body and pressed it onto his soul. The mana fizzled in the runes, and their unending, torrential downpour lessened to a light drizzle. Torix regained the ability to speak, but movement still eluded him. He flopped around, unable to wield the physical body.

I kept Event Horizon on him, applying my aura like a tourniquet. As I did, Torix's fiery eyes regained stability. However, they also dimmed over the next hour. He rolled around trying to get up. As he regained the ability to control his mind, he lost control of his body. Torix's limbs shivered from the weight they carried before he collapsed. Torix's voice leaked out as a hoarse whisper.

"It's crushing me. My health. I'm dying."

I shook my head, pulling back the aura. Torix twitched every few seconds like a corpse struck by lightning. I squeezed my hands together as Torix let out a groan.

"My mind is fading."

With The Rise of Eden, I bolstered his stats. Torix's voice surged.

"I can breathe again...But-"

Mana surged out of the armor. It coursed like an endless river, becoming our worst nightmare. I watched my aura give Torix his mind back before the armor stole it away while waging war once more. Like an infestation of cockroaches, it kept coming back as Torix took charge with his mind magic. I created a telepathic link between us, but there was little I could do.

The body's innate mana and Torix's soul fought tooth and nail. Torix wielded his reserves with a deft, efficient hand. The armor ripped into him like a swarm of locusts smothering a tree. As I dwelled within an unseen battleground, I applied constant pressure. I dove in, swarming the mana that tried consuming Torix. As I launched my first telepathic blow, I left a gaping wound on the mana. In turn, a wound formed on Torix.

Torix shouted.

"We're connected. I am in control of the host already, and we've formed a union of sorts. However, the innate mana production of the material is absurd. It was as if the mind of the entity and its body are one and the same."

I smacked my forehead. Of course, they were. I still used blood magic, and that made any attack on my mana the same as an attack on my mind. That was the case with my golems as well. As I used Event Horizon to crush the will within Torix, I also unintentionally killed Torix's new form. That innate connection left me with few options, though I tried them.

Firstly, I attempted to separate the two. Whenever I did, Torix began losing control of his new body altogether. It was the same as prying them apart, so I scratched that idea off the list. I then tried bolstering only Torix and not the golem with The Rise of Eden. The system didn't recognize them as two distinct entities, so that plan failed as well.

However, the system wasn't in full control of my aura. I was. With intention, I parsed out what was my ally and what wasn't. I dissected the meaning of the word, knowing that an ally was more than something verified by a status screen. It was an ideal, something that I chose and decided for myself.

At the moment, that wasn't the mana or the golem that Torix embodied. It was his soul and his soul alone. Taking a deft approach, I poured The Rise of Eden over Torix once more. This time, I restrained Schema's influence, suppressing the cold, calculating claws of the AI. I held them down, wrestling away its streamlining affect.

It clicked into place and held my aura's potential in the palm of my hand. Torix strengthened. He arose from the ashes of the conflict, and the spark within him ignited once more. As he continued his assault, the mana of the armor watched on. It waited for a moment, letting the lich tear it down with slicing, psionic strikes.

And it wasn't enough.

Torix continued his pursuits with bolstered fervor. The mana of the armor let out a malevolent laugh, one of hunger and intention. My own blood rippled in response, the sound familiar yet foreign. I grimaced as Torix attempted to wrangle the innate mana production back into his control. It once more suffused his mind, wearing it away with torrents of mindless thought.

I shifted gears, attempting to change my approach. I bore down onto the armor with Event Horizon, but this time, I altered how I applied it. Event Horizon carried several effects, and one was sapping mana. While the blood magic stopped me from halting that altogether, I could siphon away the excess energy pooling around Torix.

So I did. The crystals of dominion mana surrounding Torix cracked and crumbled in the face of Event Horizon's pressure. The pooling darkness evaporated. I eroded Torix's body, stealing as much mana as it continuously generated. This suppressed its excess energy, and Torix took the situation in stride.

He wielded every advantage at his disposal. Several of his minions began joining the fray, their minds aligned with his. Torix channeled the mental strength as a singular unit, similar to my psionic web of golems from L-7. Unlike my crass and rough strategy, Torix employed strategic, precise strikes on his golem's mana.

It was working. The mana of Torix's new body had become a shadow of its former self, and Torix picked up momentum. Unlike the armor, Torix learned. Adapted. Grew. He gained skill in this endeavor, and it became easier for him to fend the armor off. Despite his progress, the armor's mana swelled with its own growing impetus.

The attribute I prided myself in became Torix's downfall. Endurance.

The armor had absolutely no quit in it while Torix's mental alertness steadily faded. No matter the wounds or odds, the armor remained as sharp and tactile as ever. It continued its nigh physical aggression, maintaining steady pressure despite the mana being routed time and time again.

My eyes widened in horror as chunks of Torix's mind began falling from him. I shifted my dimensional wakes once more. Torix reformed, but the armor was a deluge of thought, hunger, and animism. It had no fault in its resolve. It carried no thoughts of defeat, only of consuming the mind within its grasp. In this downward spiral, Torix and I fought.

Torix could rally himself and recover whenever I used The Rise of Eden, but he couldn't pressure the full strength of the armor. At the same time, Event Horizon could crush down on the armor and give Torix the reprieve he needed to whittle the mana away. However, the armor would bide its time, waiting on the limited mental reserves of the lich to inch downward.

A stalemate formed. Over the next two hours, Torix and his new body's mana generation fought tooth and nail. Gnashing. Tearing. Annihilation. They left no quarter, ripping each other to shreds time and time again. Torix improved throughout the fight, becoming a better version of his previous self. He plugged in gaps in his defense. He found openings I wasn't even aware of. He dug deep into the pits of his soul, finding an enormous reserve that I didn't realize he had.

Of course, I respected Torix. I considered him my mentor for a reason. However, seeing the full brunt of his mental might was a different story altogether. He was a psionic juggernaut, one with finesse, boldness, and ingenuity. Torix left me awed.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But the mana of the golem was perpetual.

At this point, if they fought fresh, Torix would've won in his current iteration. He improved that much under the pressure of this horrific situation. However, Torix wasn't fresh anymore. He was running on fumes, on a desperate hope of clinging to life. If he had his phylactery, he'd of already lost control, but this was his last chance at survival. That desperation fueled him as he raged and raged and raged.

They kept dueling, and I shifted my auras to keep Torix afloat. Despite all my best efforts, the beginning of the end all started with a hint of doubt. Torix murmured,

"Is this what you face every day?"

Torix's voice was determined but eroding. I gulped.

"Yes."

Torix's eyes flickered in his body, the expression haunting.

"And now you lie to me. This doesn't rival your normal mana production at all. You also have all those minds mucking about in your head as well. You're dancing on a thin line, disciple. You should tread carefully."

I shook my head. I didn't like how he was talking.

"I'm not the one who's dying here. We should focus on you right now."

He let out a quivering laugh. Torix's voice kept getting lower, like a puddle soaking into dry, cracked mud.

"I do ask that you let my hubris be a lesson to you. I will fight until the end, and it will be a noble death. But know that my failings were many. I failed my son Alfred by letting him take on a foolish pursuit alone. I failed my family by pushing them away whenever they showed disgust. I should've tried to make them understand. I shouldn't have given in to my anger."

I blinked. My eyes burned.

"Just focus on the battle."

"I will. Alas, this needs to be said - I've always wanted to rival you."

My voice rattled.

"You do."

A warmth entered Torix's voice.

"I've shown better experience and a more learned bearing at times, but I want you to know that what I feared has come to pass. I was afraid you would begin to enlighten your mind and no longer need me. I was terrified that you'd use all that intelligence for once and begin to develop your mental acumen."

My throat was like fire, and my aura wavered. Torix reached up with a shaking hand. He laughed.

"And you have. You're no longer an ignorant child trapped in a cave. You've grown up into a fine young man. You will know far more than me soon enough. You'll see worlds I've only imagined. And that's what I feared most of all. I was afraid that I would hate watching you grow."

A silver tear leaked from my eye. Torix scoffed.

"And it has been my greatest joy."

I took ragged breaths. Torix laughed, the sound faint and fading.

"Please...Keep learning. Keep pursuing the mysteries of the many worlds you find. Enlighten yourself and your world."

I gulped. Torix's hand slackened. His mind began collapsing, pieces of himself falling apart. I wiped my hand down my face, trying to get a grip on the situation. I struggled along, pulling pieces of my master together, but it wasn't enough. This wasn't enough. I wasn't enough.

I needed more. Much more. I needed both auras in tandem. Each would embody my multiversal roots and manifest myriad abilities. The idea of me being a multiverse was always so grand and overbearing, like some biblical proclamation that lacked all substance. However, I'd manifested many of my supposed multiversal abilities over time.

I would need to uncover its depths here and now to save a friend. Taking my mind, I pulled at both Event Horizon and The Rise of Eden in tandem. Like all the other times I tried using them together, one aura stopped the other. Outside of my mind, the auras flickered from one aura to the next.

The aura bombardment hurt Torix's defensive efforts, but I pushed on. As time went by, the flickering of the auras stabilized to a monotonous beating. They flipped from one-dimensional wake to the other. As the pulse extended onward, each aura began losing its meaning. It reminded me of saying a word too many times in a row. After a while, it devolved from a word into a sound.

The auras were similar, their essence lost in the rapid fluctuations. I couldn't fully exert either pressure, leaving Torix flailing on the ground. With each passing second, more of who he was faded. The chance of him coming back from mental disintegration lessened. As I peeled my mind apart to make something happen, I watched a friend die. I pushed harder. I flickered the auras with a rapidity that defied reason.

I stood still, pressing downward with temporal compression. I locked in and put all my psyches to work. Like an industrial factory, we took turns moving the auras back and forth. It was a mental tug of war, each Daniel pulling the aura in and out of existence. As the speed of the transition increased, a lag began forming.

Even if I bent my aura away from a particular spot, it still carried a residue of the effect. Like some lingering apparition, my dimensional wake was remembered wherever it had been. It was something I felt after awakening from Marcella's obliteration; my dimensional wakes had momentum.

That lingering pull was something that I had experimented with before, but my other auras would wash it away, wiping the effect clean. To get a full, powerful vestige of my aura, I needed to impart its full wrath. Instead of having my many psyches switch the aura, I split them into two camps, one for each of the wakes. They would focus with all their will, summoning each dimensional wake with absolute force. It arrived, and it was a salient, arresting sensation.

Even I experienced the ripples in space and time. I had never pushed onto reality with such force, and it pushed back. A cold fear leached into my chest, but I pushed past the desire to run. I mauled into my surroundings, having never surged onto the dimension around me to such an extent. In time, it began to respond to my will.

Something around us moved. It shifted. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was a bending of something fundamental. I continued exerting the pressure, getting better at implanting my wake onto my surroundings. It pushed at the underpinnings of reality, and something began to break apart.

As it did, I left my own insignia on what remained. A piece of what I was at my core, it branded the area. It left it unwilling to return to its previous way of being as if I conquered space itself. With every passing second, I surged onto reality with greater and greater finality, turning the ineffable into the mundane. The secrets of a broader reality bent into something I understood. Something worldly.

Something that was mine.

Torix couldn't speak anymore, but I pressed on. I kept pushing down until my auras bled into the surroundings. They no longer left the space, becoming harbingers of my intent. My will. My want. I crushed the space until the laws of reality caved in. As they did, two of my auras melded into the subspace.

The immense pressure around me, something I had become used to, faded. I achieved a level of comfort I hadn't felt in years, if ever. I was not one with an alien universe. I was the universe itself, and it would bend to what I willed. In that space, my limitations ceased existing, and what I wanted would manifest.

I could break all laws of reality for I was the reality. I raised a hand, compelling the two auras to press onto Torix. What was impossible before became real. Wielding both wakes, I smothered the mana in the armor and magnified Torix. He breathed back in life, his will to live bolstered. At the same time, I culled the armor's mana until it was but a whimpering child.

My armor grinned, having covered my face during my focus. It held its hunger against the golem, and the golem raged. It cried. It caved. As it cowered away, Torix regained control of the body. He moved for a moment before turning to me.

"I..I'm back. What happened?"

I grunted, my voice strained.

"I have no fucking idea."

As I continued doing whatever it was that I was doing, Torix stood up, brushed himself off, and took a moment to think. After a second, he walked up to the pillars. He funneled the excess mana of the ritual into them, and after a few seconds, he achieved a pleasant and internal equity. Instead of wrestling for control, he had the armor's will funneled into the ritual.

There, it refined into a usable source of power. Like that, the matter of life and death became a resource.

The power of the ritual was finalized at that moment. Above us, the cavern's icy walls ripped away. Icy wind coursed over us, and the storms I felt were now seen across the horizons. Tornadoes of fire, lightning that cracked like stone, and wind that breathed life into the world, these elemental outpours overwhelmed.

For miles, the ice sheets cracked. The clouds parted, and the sun was seen again. Torix turned to me, his fire eyes a deep, navy blue. He gave me a nod.

"I have returned to the living, or so it would seem."

I trembled before collapsing onto the ground. Reality came back in full force, restoring its previous self. The rush carried a tangible anger, and my armor crushed over me. I bled from the wounds, but a bloody smile traced my lips. I shouted at the ether,

"Hah. I'm not as much of a roach now, am I?"

Torix peered at me as if I were mad. Maybe I was. I waved him off, my back against the ice.

"I've felt this before when we watched Lehesion and the Spatial Fortress fight. At that time, I was crushed utterly by some kind of spatial fluctuation. This was actually a stronger pulse, yet I'm still here. The Progress...It feels good."

Torix rolled his shoulders before staring at his free hand.

"Progress. It is quite an enjoyable feeling, isn't it?"

We rested for a while, soaking in the calm after the storm. I still lavished in my relief before Torix put his other hand on the barrier.

He nodded my way.

"For now, I'll need to remain within the ritual. Otherwise, I risk losing control of this overbearing mana once more. Once I'm gone, I'll have full faculties of the mana along with this bulky, physical form. In essence, I will remain a lich in class and title while gaining the body of a juggernaut."

I took a breath.

"I'm just glad you're still here."

Torix peered at the walls of ice in every direction, the entire cavern having been decimated by dispersing waves of energy and force.

"This was the closest to death I've ever come, and without your support, I wouldn't have been able to survive this. Thank you."

I lifted a thumbs up, still mentally exhausted.

"No problem."

Torix grasped a hand.

"It's still odd. This single fist could move mountains. It really is quite an incredible feeling of physical potency. The mana, while dangerous, is also overflowing. If channeled efficiently, I could generate world-changing rituals. I will do so once I've mastered my newfound potential. My disciple, what we have done here...It will be the impetus of great things."

I tried mustering up my aura, but it didn't respond with its normal fluidity. Instead, it gunked out like thick mud. I sat up before trying again. Once more, it responded like a drunken friend vomiting over a toilet. My aura was about as useful, the dimensional wake lacking the clear, crisp effect it normally carried.

I frowned.

"That's weird."

"Is it your aura? It does feel rather finicky at the moment, doesn't it?"

"I feel drunk. Like I'm...I don't know, eight shots deep?"

Torix laughed.

"It's a good thing I gained a moment of reprieve, then. It left me with enough awareness to come to the obvious answer on how to handle the armor - channel the energy outward. I tried upon my initial ascension, but I couldn't even think straight with all the chaotic intrusions. It felt like I was trapped in the mind of a schizophrenic, and the voices were screaming inside my ears louder than I could think."

I raised a hand, mana pooling in my palm.

"It does kind of have a mind of its own, doesn't it? It makes sense if you think about it. This isn't actually made by us. We're able to access it because of the Old Ones, and the better we are at controlling this energy, the more of it we can access."

Liquid energy writhed out of Torix's new hand and into the pillars of the ritual. The lich added.

"And the more mana we access, the more it invades us. I've dwelled on the implications of what you've said, and my conclusion is thus: in many ways, mana is a gambit. It allows us to evolve and fight on equal terms with the eldritch, but it is also very likely their origin. Anyone who experiences mana poisoning is, therefore, only being overtaken by the latent will of the Old One that sent them the energy. It's how they leave a mark on this realm."

Torix rolled a hand.

"Therefore, all manas carry their signature. I wonder which Old One has created dominion mana?"

I waved ascendent energy in my hand.

"I don't know, but this is definitely Baldowah's energy. It wants war, finality, and consequence. The best way Baldowah found for making that happen has been to imbue greed and hunger in people, which ascendant mana does well."

I shifted the mana into primordial energy.

"This is Eonoth's. He's trying to take control, probe, and learn about this world. However, he isn't actually curious at all. He just wants the world to be rewritten in his image."

I altered the energy into quintessence.

"That being said, I have no clue where this energy comes from. I've also seen one of Etorhma's avatars generate a seafoam-colored mana that seemed like liquified knowledge. I'd guess that's Etorhma's signature."

Torix let out a weak laugh before shaking his head.

"All of our efforts are built on the borrowed energy of cosmic beings. It makes us seem so small, doesn't it?"

I smiled, my grin fierce.

"Oh, it's the opposite. We're taking from beings far above us and harnessing their essence. Every second we fight, we make their power our own."

Torix shook his head.

"For all we know, they may take the mana away as easily as they give it."

I looked up at the open sky.

"I don't understand what the Old Ones are, but I do understand how desperate they are for meaning. That's why they need us. It's because we're born with limitations, and that gives us an intrinsic purpose - to rise above our weaknesses. The Old Ones lack that fragility, and now that they've tasted it, they're like fiending addicts. They can't stop. I can feel it."

Torix let his free hand flop against his side.

"How exactly, is that supposed to be motivating?"

"It's simple. Just now, you were in a life-and-death battle with mana. That is, in essence, one of those otherworldly entities. Guess what happened?"

Torix's eyes flared.

"I barely survived."

I raised a fist.

"No. Not at all."

I shook my hand.

"We won, and we'll win again."