Advent of Eternity - Ch 39 (Patreon)

Stix’s dagger plunged into her opponent’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged and he staggered back as she ripped it out, but no blood flowed from the wound. Instead, the man simply pitched forward and crashed to the ground.

The vibrant noise rang out once more, splitting the room as Cyll decapitated one of his opponents. Knell refused the powerful desire to glance back at Joseph and took advantage of the confusion to close the distance between himself and the woman.

Her guards both lunged for Knell and he gritted his teeth, throwing himself into a roll. He flew past both of them, agony firing through his entire right leg as he hit the ground and forced himself back to his feet.

It was far from graceful, and Knell nearly passed out from the pain, but he forced his body to continue complying. He nearly fell again as he blocked a powerful overhand swing with his staff, then cast slow on the man and lunged toward the mage.

Her other guard tried to intercept him, but Knell slipped past his grip and shoved his staff into her mouth as hard as he could, breaking teeth. He angled the blow upward, trying to spear her.

He felt something give before a powerful blast of blue energy threw him across the room and slammed him into the wall. Knell grunted in pain, his vision splitting into two. He shook his head, forcing himself to stand upright.

Blood was pouring from the woman’s mouth, but she was still standing. Knell wheezed, shaking as he drew on his magic. One of the bandits ran at him, but a thrown dagger from Sylph caught him in the shoulder and drew his attention.

Knell’s magic surged. Joseph’s bell rang once more, and he cast Tax the Living. Spirals of smog burst from the woman’s mouth, coiling around her head. They flashed, turning into jagged obsidian and shooting back into her.

Blood sprayed from her nose and mouth and the woman crashed to the ground, unmoving. Joseph’s laugh echoed through the room in a discordant whisper as his bell tolled. With the woman dead, the remaining bandits broke and fell under Cyll and Stix’s blades.

The gods have granted you experience for besting your foe. You have leveled up.

You have defeated an entity more powerful than you. Experience Gained. Your Level has been adjusted accordingly.

Name: Knell Coda [Age: 0]

Path: Scion [Rank Zero]

Magical Energy Level: 12

Attunement A: Foresight of the Vulture

Attunement B: Empty

Attunement C: Empty

Attunement D: Empty

Attunement E: Empty

Bloodline: Eternal Body [Epic]– Time magic bends around you, modifying your lifespan and granting you resistance to spatial magics.

Path: Epoch

Magical Energy Level: 7

Abilities:

Mental Clock – Use time magic to keep time or set an alarm audible only to you.

Slow – Impede the movement of a single creature by warping the time around them for a brief instant.

Anchor – Lock a target’s current state in the timeline, returning it to that state after 1 minute passes, reverting any changes to the target that have happened under the duration of Anchor.

Advent of Eternity (Passive)- You do not fall under the jurisdiction of time. With sufficient strength, it will bend to your will, and your existence is absolute. You were never born, and you will never die.

Knell leaned heavily on his staff and let out a sigh. Either the woman was a lot stronger than he’d thought, or he’d gotten a fair amount of experience for the kills that Cyll and Stix had made on the bandits. Evidently, just slowing them was enough to count.

“You okay, Knell?” Stix asked, wiping the blood from her blade on a dead man’s lapel.

“Quite,” Knell replied, not letting the pulsating pain coming from his leg show on his face. “I gained a significant amount of magical power and have access to a new spell.”

“Who was this lady?” Cyll asked, grabbing the dead woman by the back of her coat and lifting her up. He shook her body slightly, then dug around in her pockets. “She had a lot of the fancy gems.”

“That spells she was casting looked like it would pack quite the punch,” Stix said. “But it was a terrible idea to use such a slow piece of magic in the middle of a fight.”

“I agree,” Knell said, limping over to Cyll. He pulled the dead woman’s coat to the side and studied her shirt. A small patch was sewn into it, just above her breast. It depicted a blue heron in flight above a gray wave. “This is an emblem. I don’t recognize it, but she was probably part of some force. Based on how they protected her, maybe she was somehow related to whoever was in charge?”

“They didn’t do a great job of it,” Cyll said with a snort.

Knell grunted. He took a dagger lying on the ground and cut the patch off the woman’s shirt, tucking it away into his pocket.

“She was inexperienced,” Knell replied. “I thought she was casting something to help fight, but now I’m starting to think she might have had some way to escape and they were buying her time. If she’d started off fighting to help the rest of them, we would have had a significantly rougher time.”

“Her loss,” Stix said with a shrug. “But does that mean we’ve probably got a pissed off warlord of some sort after us now?”

“Nobody got away,” Knell said. “Whatever force this woman was part of has no idea that we killed her. They probably don’t even know she’s dead yet, unless the spell she was casting somehow notified them of it.”

“So, what now?” Cyll asked, rolling his shoulders. “They already went and killed the boss here. I will point out that I beat Stix’s challenge, though. I didn’t get stabbed anywhere important once.”

“You’ve got a hole in the middle of your arm,” Stix said.

“And? You don’t need an arm to live.”

“That would have been fatal for most people.”

“Nobody is going to notice something like that,” Cyll said, rolling his eyes. “They’ll be a lot more concerned with my sword swinging at their neck. It’s not as obvious as a chest wound.”

“You’ve both got a point,” Knell said. “Cyll is correct that an arm wound usually isn’t going to look obviously fatal, but people with enough experience will probably recognize that something is up. Let’s call this one a draw. Next time, Cyll, don’t get stabbed at all.”

“That’s a pretty tall order,” Cyll said, pursing his lips and tugging on his beard. “That’s like… half of my fighting style. Can’t I get stabbed at least a little?”

“No. Improve your fighting style. Every second people believe you’re just a normal man is vital. The moment someone restrains you, you’re worthless. Either figure out how to get yourself out of entrapment spells that limit your movement or do what Stix says.”

Cyll gagged. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

He tossed the woman’s body to the side, then paused. He grabbed her again and shuffled around her belt until his fingers found a small leather bag. Cyll grinned and ripped it free, peeking inside before stuffing it into a pocket. “Money.”

“You don’t even know how much most of that is worth,” Stix said, crossing her arms.

“It’s all the same,” Cyll said with a shrug. “Gold bits are more expensive than silver ones. The coppers are good for throwing at birds.”

Knell shook his head as Stix and Cyll started arguing again. He walked over to Joseph, who was leaning against the wall, and cocked an eyebrow.

“I thought you were only going to be here until the fight was over.”

“Don’t worry,” Joseph said with a chuckle. “I won’t be staying much longer. I’m just shepherding the last of these souls into the proper domain. We can’t have Madrigal finding them, after all.”