Chapter 100: Final Merge

The washroom available in the austere bunk rooms that dotted the biome were distinctly unpleasant. A narrow cubicle tucked around the corner from the kitchen, it was a far cry from the warm rainfall he had come to appreciate in the dwarven manors.

For one, it was freezing. Kaius had thought he would never be caught dead shying away from a cold wash. Afterall, a lifetime of using frigid mountain streams to get clean had the effect of hardening one against such base discomforts.

Unfortunately, he had to admit that he had perhaps grown a little spoiled after so many months with comfortable amenities. He shivered at the icy water cascaded over his head, muscles locking up as they tensed against the chill.

He cleaned himself quickly under the spigot that jutted roughly out of the wall, before removing the gore that had accumulated on his armour. Thankfully, getting dry was much less fraught. Each of the twenty odd bunks in the rest stop were equipped with thick woollen quilts. It almost felt wrong to leave perfectly good bedding sodden and wadded on the floor, but it would all be reset anyway once the biome was left in peace for enough time.

Returning to the bunkroom proper, Kaius saw Porkchop had taken to lying on the brick floor near the kitchen. He was still damp, the lacking room meaning they had to wash one at a time.

“What’re you doing there?”” Kaius asked with a raised brow.

“Waiting to dry,” he responded, flicking his ears. “Wet fur feels horrible on the blankets.”

“Fair enough,” Kaius said with a shrug, taking a seat on one of the nearest bunks. “You feeling up to chatting about your mystery skill after I’ve merged Uncanny Dodge?”

Porkchop paused for a moment, digesting his words, before he responded a moment later. “I am. Thank you for being patient, it’s a big deal amongst my people. There will be an explanation to go along with it, I promise.”

Kaius grinned, feeling relieved. His curiosity had been all but eating away at him, but far more than that he had been a little concerned by how cagey Porkchop had been about it. With how open his friend usually was, it would have to be a great secret for him to have held these cards so close to his chest. Even if he had still let slip that something was up.

“Well, in that case, I better get on with it,” he said, pivoting to lie flat as Porkchop gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

He looked up at the slats of the bunk above him for a moment, before snapping his eyes shut and diving into his soulspace.

In the blackness of his inner sight, his soul lit up like a bonfire. He couldn’t quite believe it was already happening, merging his final legacy skill. It had required almost four years of constant training, wounds by the dozen, and boundless mountains of effort to reach this point. More, really. A culmination of his entire life to this point.

Afterall, it wasn’t like everything had been fun and games before he had matriculated into the system. No, he was a legacy scion. Everything had been bent towards ensuring that he would be able to merge all of his skills in the short five years before his class selection.

And now he was here. It was almost enough to leave him feeling a little directionless if he was honest. It was only a passing feeling though. He wouldn’t be done, not by a long shot. He still had to decide on his final skill, cap everything, and then escape the Depths. Even then he wouldn’t be done, class selection was a beast in its own right, and was a simple starting point to the endless fight to claw your way up the tiers.

It was still a firm step into the end of his childhood. With a class he would be considered a man proper by society at large. If he’d been in the forest above, still with Father, they would have been planning a celebration by now. No doubt an unplanned trip to Three Fields to down many a flagon.

Father wasn’t here though. Yet as much as that burned, as much as he felt the yawning pit clawing at his stomach at his absence, he didn’t feel alone. Porkchop was…family. While that didn’t blunt his grief, it did give him the resolute faith that no matter what happened in the future, there would be a brother at his side to back him up. A fat one, who was far too hairy, but a brother all the same.

Kaius drank in his soul-space. The fiery light that jetted from his centre of being, illuminating the foggy clouds of his resources, glimmering on the platinum shards of his eight legacy skills that circled in a messy orbit.

With only two skills remaining, the sheer weight of the call of his legacy skills was going to be devastating. It would also be their last battle. With his class they would be bound to him in their totality, linked to a grander, more fundamental working.

In his mind’s eye he could see them waiting, watching, as they prepared for their final confrontation. He would give them no inch, no quarter. No matter what vile whispers and painful shrieks they might call out to him with.

His will was forged iron, tempered in a crucible that would have killed all others in his position. His power, his might, his sheer bloodyminded dogged determination, was unique amongst the higher races. This, he knew for sure. This, he had confirmed to him by the system itself.

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The first to be watched by the system in aeons.

The first unclassed to survive the depths, to slay Champions by the handful.

And soon, the first to tear down a Guardian from their throne and reascend to the world above.

This was a trial that every scion of his dynasty had faced. No challenge so base would stymy him. Not here, and not now.

He latched onto his soul, wrapping his intent around the wisps of meaning and actualisation that emanated from his centre. Then he began to weave, a great braided cable that glowed with inner light spun out of the fire of his soul.