I once assumed that strength was characterized by the things I could break, the lives I could take, the structures and nations I could collapse.

I once assumed that superior might was all that mattered, that it was the fate of the weaker to serve and be used.

For years, I have reigned over the Midwest of this great and primordial continent. I slew titans whose bodies blotted out the sky when they still walked the lands. I harvested their corpses and forged a mighty keep from their bones. I used their cores to fuel my little kingdom with wonder. And I cast ash and fire from the sky, drowning the horizon, boiling my enemies before they could ever encroach upon my realm. And past the periphery of it, I compelled grand and withering storms to arise. Storms that made the lands of my neighbors sallow and barren. Storms that forced their farmers to turn to me in mass.

This was my notion of power.

And all this became utterly meaningless when my youngest daughter grew sick.

I am an unkind man. Of this I am aware. I have denied it for years. But in my heart of hearts, I have known.

I am possessive with those I love, ruthless against those who I consider my enemies, or the ones that might very well be enemies someday. Every insult directed toward me is punished to the maximum extent of my brutality. Every prayer not in my name is considered sacrilege and rewarded by an obsidian spike driven through the naysayers' chests.

There were Biomancers aplenty on my land once. I sent them away. I killed those who wouldn't leave. For those who wielded powers beyond my knowledge wielded them without my consent. And thus did I justify their deaths as preemptive measures to protect me, to protect my children.

I can shatter mountains. I can slay monsters of legend. I can crush the will of peoples far and wide. And I can do nothing to spare my daughter of her fate.

I, the Dust King, Tyrant Lord of the Midwest, stand a Pathbearer above Pathbearers.

And I, the Dust King, am nothing.

I see it now. I see it clearly.

I will journey east. There are whispers of new gods, ones that call themselves the Ascendants. They may be pretenders; they would not be the first charlatans rising from the Abyss and claiming to possess divinity. But if there is just a chance—the slightest chance—that they might be able to understand what ails her, that they might be able to prevent her demise, then my throne, my kingdom, my life, all can be traded.

Everything.

I thought myself above ruin. I thought myself beyond the touch of decay. But now I see. What point is there in harnessing the potential of ruin if you cannot save what matters, even when you hold the earth?

-Last entry in the Dust King's journal

224 (I)

Fire

Shiv had no phobias related to fire; he just didn't much like hearing people burn to death. It reminded him of his unfortunate demise within the teleportation anchor at Passage. That was a death he would never forget. And right now, echoes of that death were being played back to him as countless students howled and brayed their pain, even through the resounding crackles of the rising flames.

From the outside, the dorms were made of sturdy materials. They were also reinforced in interesting ways, not only through concrete and metal, but also through magic circulating its inner supports thanks to the mithril rods lodged there. Some of those mithril rods were exposed now, their mana spilling out into the world like blood from a slit throat. And to make matters worse, Shiv noticed how some of the spell patterns seemed corrupted.

He wasn't a studied mage, but he'd been in enough battles now to notice specific shapes and colors, namely the shape and color of Pyromancy.

"This isn't an alchemical fire," Shiv sent to Helix telepathically. They were fast approaching the burning dorm, flowing from shadow to shadow like a shark closing in on wounded prey. As Shiv grew closer, he could see chains of bright orange mana snaking through the mutilated husk of the structure.

"No, it is not." Helix beheld the scene through Shiv's eyes. A low chuckle escaped the orc. "Someone has altered the wards sustaining the building. I don't see any hint of Hydromancy either. That means that it was likely removed. Someone is deliberately trying to cause a mass casualty event."

A crushing wave of counter-Chronomancy scythed over the shadows protecting Shiv from the heart of the campus. The Deathless grunted. He could still see a great many vitality signatures glinting within the blazing structure, but even with time at a near standstill, some were on the verge of winking out. He also noticed how the glass was melting; how the metal and stone were pooling into slag right after. The heat was extreme. The students inside weren't going to last long amidst these temperatures. He needed to act quickly.

The first order of business would be to use his Shapeless Tides to shred the mithril supports. He would sweep the building using his Biomancy field and rip whatever injuries he could away from the wounded. He'd get Helix to help him while he was doing that, but to choke the rest of the flames into submission from a distance needed someone with far greater Pyromancy than what Shiv possessed.

Candles was the obvious candidate, but Shiv didn't know where he was—there was no time to go screaming for help, either. Every second mattered, and Shiv needed to act now.

Shiv exploded out from a patch of shadows cast by the dancing flames lighting the top of the dorm, and he ripped his Perfect Semblance off. As he tossed his mask into his cape and as his body returned to its baseline state. His helmet slammed back down around his face, shrouding him from any unseen observers. Best to be caught as the Deathless than the weak and vulnerable Marcus Unblood if he was going to be fighting magical fires.

The temporal wards came again, but Shiv ignored them as he focused on the blaze above all else. He moved fast, his vectors flaring to life, accelerating him forward.

He slammed into the side of the building, yet held his kinetic might back. Instead of barreling through the entire structure, he clung to the exposed supports, ignoring the lashing tongues of fire that licked at his body. Overflow Tides surged out of him and began shredding through the mana that circulated within the mithril. Soon, bits of flame sputtered out around Shiv, as if all the oxygen sustaining them had been severed.

Inertial Overdrive 179 180

At the same time, Shiv's mana hydra slashed out. He washed his Biomancy field over bodies, crystallizing wound after wound at record speed. His strain climbed, but it was only a paltry thing for now. Many burns, collapsed lungs, melted eyes, boils, and contusions flooded the insides of his Aegis.

But though Shiv's Shapeless Tides traveled fast and gutted an entire section of the blaze, it seemed like the entire interior of the dorm was on the verge of collapse.

Just then, the academy's Chronomantic wards smashed into him. It was like a falling tsunami slamming into the surface of an ironclad fortress. Shiv didn't budge. The wards had more power, yet his Chronomancy endured even as pieces of it were ripped away. The soup his Last Morsel had made was a hell of a booster for his magic.

I need to get in the habit of eating mana or something. Maybe I should just start mixing all my available mana types to boost myself.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He began focusing, splitting his attention between the building itself and the traveling conflagration. I need to get rid of the mithril supports before I do anything else. They're still actively stoking the flames, and I don't have any way to overwrite them. After the supports are gone, I'll need to use what's left of my Overflow Tides to keep the building standing until all the kids get out.

His Chronomancy was about to succumb. Shiv ignored it. It would give him enough time to execute his actions.

Leviathan of the Shapeless Tide wasn't just far more powerful than Gravitic Wrestler; it was also much more dexterous. It gave Shiv a vague tactile sense of everything he was touching. And right now, as his tides ripped through rogue streams of Pyromancy, he could feel just how fragile the building was. It was like a tower eroded at its base. The top was getting too heavy, the middle too brittle; It was going to collapse in several directions.

Worse yet, it seemed the brittleness was spreading—and unnaturally fast too. Probably not just Pyromancy crawling through the building, then. Probably some kind of Geomancy spell as well. Why the hells would someone do this? Am I dealing with another escapee from the Rubix Well here?

His temporal shell finally broke. At the same time, Shiv gritted his teeth and pulled back. His Overflow Tides suddenly inverted in direction. Every single mithril support beam was wrenched free from its place and sent straight down into the foundations of the building. A deafening scream of shattering structural supports, ripping walls, and collapsing floors followed.

Strider of the Unbending Path 164 165

The dorm, shaped like a frozen avalanche, began to crumble. But though it shivered, though parts of it bent and deformed, it remained standing. As a rushing flood of vectors cleaved across every meter of its surface, Shiv's mind wailed with strain. A headache was beginning to build, and he found himself nearly overwhelmed.

Holding it up was no effort at all, but there were still flames blowing, ripping through rooms along the interior, still sections of mithril that he hadn't managed to gut. A series of life signs vanished before Shiv's Vitaemancy, and the rage inside him grew hotter than the flames without. He didn't know these students; he didn't know why they were burning, but he was offended by their deaths. He took their passing as an insult. There he was, a Legend, unable to spare a few Adepts from their final end.

He wasn't going to accept this.

"Helix!" Shiv called out.

The orc instantly appeared, popping out halfway from Shiv's cape. They were both bathed in a dense layer of smoke, and the Deathless began pumping out his Creeping Void in a small radius as well. That would keep them from getting noticed in case any on-campus security or the Prismatic Guard teleported in. Shiv felt a flash of Biomancy mana singe his field and realized Helix was casting as well.

"This is a calculated attack, as we assumed," the orc said, sounding more fascinated than horrified. "And the Pyromancy here, well, this is a surprise… It's not a pure Pyromancy spell."

"What do you mean?" Shiv asked.

"I mean, it is partially entwined with a bit of Geomancy and Biomancy as well. It combusted practically every bit of matter in the building. Everything the flames touch, they swallow immediately. If it's a solid, it's a hyperconductor for the flames. Quite a brutal thing to shape upon a group of hapless students. Wasteful too. Again, just poison the food. This is so much wasted power."

Just then, Shiv felt the squeezing pressure of a teleportation. He saw the shapes of beret-wearing milita blinking in behind him and grunted. "We're going in deeper," he said. He didn't wait for Helix to respond. He began to step forward, harnessing more Overflow Tides to rip a path open before him.

As he snapped through bars of reinforced metal and shredded through collapsing walls, the Deathless crashed into the first dorm room, positioned along the westmost exterior of the building. There, he winced as he saw two charred bodies flash-fried into their beds. The only reason he could tell that the things they lay upon were beds at all was that the general shape of the frames had been preserved. The bathroom was a charred mess, and the rest of the space was indistinguishable as well. Many students had likely died without ever knowing what killed them. Shiv shook his head and pressed on. Sometimes you just had no chance at all. The world wanted you to die, and there was nothing you could do about it.

Not unless you were powerful enough of a Pathbearer.

Not unless you fed from death like it was a refreshing nectar.

As he continued tearing through room after room, Shiv never took his hand away from the walls. He kept his grip on one surface at all times, and he also channeled his Shapeless Tides through his feet, spreading them out along the base of the building. He could hear coughing, and as he whipped a head of his mana hydra in the direction of the sound, he realized there was someone still alive that he hadn't noticed because of just how faint their vitality signature was. Shiv assimilated their injuries into his Aegis, and he made his way toward them.

Backhanding the wall into dust, he found himself looking down at a boy whose armor was half-melted around his body. He couldn't make out any of the student's details because he was covered entirely in soot and ash. This one had been both fortunate and smart enough to survive the initial explosion and then throw himself in the large tub within his bathroom. That probably kept him alive longer than most of his peers who lived in the perimeter dorms wrapping around the west side of the building.

Shiv reached down and called for Helix to move the boy into his cape. The orc made some kind of sarcastic response as he grabbed the boy, mocking his lacking constitution, but Shiv wasn't listening. He had too many things to focus on at once.

He received a message from Adam just then, but he didn't have time to read it. Shiv had intended to send Adam something, but when he got into the flow of fighting the fire, keeping the building from collapsing, and mending the injuries of the students, it all became a bit too much.

Multi-Tasking 38 40

Shiv pressed on. Now, he used his Pyromancy as well. It wasn't very powerful, but it still gave him a sense of where the fire magic was most active. And he followed that down into the dorm's basement.

He dropped through an opening burned into the ground and clawed a long gash along the right walls so he could keep pumping more tides through the building. Doing so, he briefly suffered a lapse in concentration, and the section of the upper floors crashed inward. He grunted and halted in place. He focused more on keeping the building together. "Godsdamn it! Godsdamn Multi-Tasking! Come on!"

He poured his anger into his Multi-Tasking Skill using his Feat and felt his mind surge from one thought to another, working much faster than normally.

Multi-Tasking 40 41

He reached blindly upward using his mana hydra, but Helix tutted at him. "You're still swinging it like a limb. Use it with flexibility. Thread your field through from floor to floor."

"Bit hard to do when I'm trying to focus on eight different things at once," Shiv snapped mentally. "You could offer some help."

"Why do you think most of the children in this building are still alive, Insul?" Helix asked with a faint sneer in his voice. "Who do you think is keeping their blood flowing, keeping their organs working, keeping their brains functional? With the fire this intense and the building filled with Initiates and a few Adepts, most of whom lack any kind of respectable Magical Resistance or Toughness, a rather suspicious amount of survivors still remain, wouldn't you say?"

Instead of feeling pleased, Shiv simply clenched his jaw tighter. "So, any chance you're going to heal them completely?"

"That would deplete the point of this exercise."

"Exercise?!" Shiv nearly shouted.

"It is indeed a training opportunity. You're observing a great many burns and crystalizing flame-based wounds you can study later. And on top of that, you need more focus: you're going in the wrong direction."

"Fuck!" Shiv hissed.

He stopped talking to Helix and focused more on his Pyromancy. A section of the space behind him caved in, and Shiv tried to recover as a few of his Overflow Tides snaked in that direction of the instability. But then another section of the building began groaning, and he had to redirect his tides once more.

It's like trying to hold a cup of shattered glass together, Shiv snarled to himself. Just keeps breaking over and over again. Another three vitality signatures winked out, and that cut his complaining short.

He was about to advance toward where the Pyromancy mana seemed the thickest. But then a massive blast enveloped the bottom of the dorm. A surging beam of flame shot through the wall directly to Shiv's left, and it came so fast and abruptly that he barely responded in time. He swung his arm up on reflex, and some of his Innate Tides surged upward at an angle. He backhanded a blast away from him and tore through the supports on his left, leaving a molten chasm where steel and concrete used to exist.

Frictionless Vector 92 93

Inertial Overdrive 180 181

Pyromancy 18 19

Multi-Tasking 41 42

That was deliberate, Shiv realized instantly. The bastard responsible is still here.

The sudden ambush, paired with Shiv's split focus caused another cascading collapse. He felt more deaths around him. His Vitaemancy tasted every demise like it was a hit of coldness splashing upon his being, and Shiv's frustration reached new heights. A mesh of pain pulsated within his skull, and his Multi-Tasking was driven to the limit.

The Deathless moved in the direction of the attack now, and he saw a glistening signature. Their life was strong and unaffected by the flame. There was also another signature not far away from them. It seemed like the stronger one was chasing the weaker, and they were both heading in Shiv's direction. He felt a tugging sensation in his gut. Whoever these two signatures were, they were likely connected to the fire.

Shiv didn't know the layout of the building. He didn't care either way. Unlike the other students, he barreled through walls, ripped through metal as if it was tissue, and when he blasted through a final threshold of heat-weakened cement, Shiv laid eyes on the culprit behind the mass murder for the first time.