/Authority. That’s what the tower grants at level 100, after the fourth threshold. It’s what climbers gotta grab before getting to the fifth floor. And they are as varied as one can imagine, except for one constant - power over the world.
An authority can cut against skills, make shearing the untouchable possible. It’s a domain, it makes everything under its purview a little easier, and everyone wants to have more of it. See, the way to expand authority is to prove worthy of it. To win.
It’s an impatient, fickle power, but evermore potent for it. But it’s conditional. Mental. You gotta make your opponent feel like they’re in your house. If you don’t, well… having your authority crack is a painful thing./
-Erodyl, level ??? Skybringer, monarch of Downpour.
- - -
Pressure squeezes down on me. My heart can’t pump, and I feel my vision go black, when the enchantment hums and sputters to life. Its batteries are low, the weave is frayed, and yet, I force it to work. Even as the thing I so painstakingly crafted falls apart, its power rises.
The people in the city know, and must be swarming here to watch. My friends above know, but they can’t step closer, either. I feel the weight choking me, driving the air from my throat, when finally, I press back.
Mana storms the world, and I press back against that invisible aura around Ezekiel. That thing that allows him to strangle me without a touch. He grunts in effort, but still, invisible tendrils reach out to me, wrap around me, and toss me.
I slam into the wall at the edge of the cave, my vision sputtering again. My bones hurt, and blood coats my tongue. “Stay down, hare. Let me kill you already,” Ezekiel snarls, and when I look up, he doesn’t look scithian anymore.
His crystal wings are filled with eyes, pure, radiant white, staring at me. His mouth has grown wild fangs, his hands are claws, and he looks to have twisted some of Respitia’s light into something more dark, more violent. That power pours from him in droves, tears into me, makes me want to run.
But I refuse.
Instead, I control the enchantment. I release more mana. I press back against the fear, against the terror that pours off of him so easily. My teeth ache from the force in the air. Blood streams down my face, staining me further. Kuro quivers in my shadow. And still, I stand up. I push, I fight, I strain.
[Suppression 25 > 26]
Ezekiel grunts with exertion, flexing that invisible force. I can’t target it properly - I can.
[Selection 23 > 24]
Instantly, the weight he feels redoubles. For a moment, he staggers, but then his legs twist into something monstrous, something predatory, and he regains his footing. His maw snarls at me, fangs bared and violent. “Give up,” he demands.
“Fuck off,” I reply. Strain pours through me, rippling through my aching veins… but it’s just effort. I bear it, and my epitaph helps. I can bear it. Blood vessels pop under my skin, turning me red with bruises, but I still hold on, even as mana enough to tear me apart channels through me, held at bay by my own mind.
It crushes into Ezekiel, and he fights back. That invisible aura of his, so violent and raging, explodes with stored power. He must have been preparing it for the kill, to take us all out, and now, he’s spending it all on me. Some kind of storage ability?
As I stare, he laughs, stalking towards me with sauntering steps, revelling in his victory. “Hah! You don’t even know what this is,” he mocks with a grin. “You don’t understand, do you? This is authority.”
And that makes me laugh. Despite everything, I just can’t help it. “Hahahahaha!”
Ezekiel’s eyes twitch. “What’s so funny?” he asks, stepping even closer. He’s right in front of me now, bright darkness occupying all of my vision as fear builds in my stomach. A monstrous claw presses into my throat, denting the skin. “What are you laughing about?!”
I smile faintly at the question. “I’ve always had a problem with authority,” I say calmly. At his outrage, the fear in my heart quivers a little, shaking. “And now, you’re that problem. Authority, haha,” I snicker again. “How silly.”
At that, the priest snarls. “I’ll show you silly,” he says, and his claws dig into my stomach, splitting my flesh. It burns, even as more mana pours from me to suppress his motion. He’s slow and weak and pathetic, but he still digs into my insides. But he slows.
Then I pause. The fear shook. He’s slowing. His authority… is it limited? Influenced by something? I think, my mind racing.
“Eyes on me,” Ezekiel demands, grabbing onto my face, tilting it upwards to meet the horror. “Show me your pain, hare. Show me your agony. Let me drink your fear.”
“Does that work on most people?” I ask with a frown. With a snarl, he digs further into me, and I can feel my stomach split open, giving a rasping gasp of pain. A pathetic wheeze.
The hunter stares at me, fury quivering through him. “Pathetic wretch,” he says, tossing me aside, leaving me sprawled on the floor, blood pooling under me. “Run, already.” Mana makes the wounds worse, causing my body to fall apart as we fight. It’s brutal and violent, and no one else can approach.
Is that a feature of his authority, too, I wonder? Does it assign roles?
I don’t run. I just sit, and stare, and think, more and more mana ravaging me to slow him down. There is something almost like frustration on his face. “Fear me!” he demands. “Run, prey!”
And then it clicks.
My mind races, and I smile as I solve the riddle. My own mana tears me apart, my legs shaking, but I still rise to my feet. “No,” I whisper, voice raspy and ragged with pain.
Ezekiel, Bright Priest of the Hunt, sneers at me. He dashes forward, claws ready to kill, and-
[Selection 24 > 25]
I breathe. He stumbles. There’s a look of disbelief on his face, on the face of my prey. [Suppression] resonates violently, the tether like a rope bridge caught in a storm, but it holds. It designates who we are. And his authority turns.
Bright Priest of the Hunt. That’s his authority. Hunting.
There is a primal fear there, one that dug into my bones, one that twisted him into a terror. But fear is treacherous. It goes both ways.
And Ezekiel? He’s felt it. The way the raw mana from my enchantment slammed into his authority, and pressed it inwards. With every defiant move, it was a blow to his aura. My laughter a hammerblow, my scorn a dagger. And now?
[Selection] reaches out and assigns him a role. It contradicts his authority. It plays the game of power and says to swap places.
It shouldn’t be possible. Authority can damage skills, after all, but this time… it’s true, isn’t it? He stepped into my trap. The hunt, by nature, is reversible. His pack has been slaughtered, and this lone wolf is in front of me, baring his teeth. Because he’s terrified of me.
Terrified of losing his freedom again. Of being put back in a cage. Terrified that I might win. Because he knows it’s possible. He’s seen the brutality.
Across all the weeks he’s stalked us, hunted us, he tried to wear us down, but we grew. I grew. I walked through his blizzard, I survived his ambush, I escaped his chase, and I set a trap. It all built to this - to the moment where he would win or lose. Kill or be killed.
And now, there were two knives with me.
[Suppression], fuelled by my enchantment, caging his authority. He could not hunt me properly, because he is slow and in agony. His skills don’t work. All he has is power, and he isn’t that much stronger than me. And, of course, [Selection]. Telling him his role, telling me how to feel about him.
When I designate him as prey, the fear vanishes from my mind. The pain becomes an afterthought. I smile, mercifully, as I rise, even with a perforated stomach. And Ezekiel… takes a step back.
“What?” he says, breathlessly. “How? I am- this isn’t-”
And I watch, as finally, under all the pressure of the enchantment, his authority cracks.
A splinter of fear drives into it, and my mana instantly floods in. The stuff is so dense, it’s still tearing at my skin. I am turned into a patch of bleeding bruises, my skin lacerating itself from the storm of magic, but I stand. I step forward.
Ezekiel scuttles back on the ground.
Another splinter rips free from his authority, and he screams in pain. I hear him. I can feel it break. The cracks grow and spread. They keep growing, until his back is against a wall. Until my mana has chipped away at his authority, and its edges grow raw and jagged. Until I walk to him, pressing a knife to his throat for a second time.
I look into his eyes and they quiver. He’s terrified. I move my hand forward slowly, blood trickling down his neck when the knife breaks skin. “No,” he whispers, tears trickling from his eyes, but it’s too late.
His authority breaks.
Like a castle, it falls apart, the bricks crumbling. My enchantment burns out, finally, with a horrid whine as the threads tear into each other. The mana, so thick, instantly begins to fall apart, becoming nothing more than ambient with a last whine of power.
I stand above him, as he looks up at me, eyes wide and terrified. The mana in the area falls. My skills remain powered by my meagre vessel, almost empty now, and I slowly breathe. Then I rise.
[You have crushed Ezekiel’s authority of the hunt. Claim an Authority.]
My hand moves, but then Opal appears next to me, stopping me for just a moment, staying my killing blow. “Why?” I ask, quietly.
And they smile. “Let Inu do it. Trust me.”
For a long moment, I stare, then, slowly, I nod.
With a stumble, I step away from Ezekiel. “I win,” I say. Then, I grin wildly. “I win, you fucker. See that Respitia?” I ask, looking to the sky with a smile. “Another pawn of yours, finished. Wanna send another? Fine. I’ll kill them, if I need to. I’ll break each and every poor bastard you send to finish me.”
[Respitia the Pure returns your contempt.]
“But this one?” I point a knife, then shake my head. “I won’t kill him. See, I already got an authority from him. I broke him. Broke his magic, because that’s what I do. And now, apparently, I’m gonna let a friend of mine kill him. Inu?”
The timid girl steps forward, joining us underground. She has a conflicted expression on her face. Almost troubled, and she looks at me, seeking help. I nod, and her [Empathy] latches onto me, onto my emotions.
She draws from that void. That empty place where it doesn’t matter if Ezekiel lives or dies. She swallows drily, but when Opal gives her another nod, she steadies herself. And with another worthless whisper from Ezekiel, she punches.
Her blow lands, resonates with a high-pitch hum, and then his head splatters into blood against the wall, smearing it red. Some parts of it stain her gauntlet, and a droplet of blood lands on her cheek, staining her grimace red. “Ah,” she says quietly. “I see. That means…”
“Yep,” Opal nods. “Killing ones gives an authority. And looking at what Snow did, well…” they grin. “The five of us might all have one, now.”
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