Chapter 388: The Dragon and the Phoenix

Third of the day. Read the 387 before this one!

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Trees of Merit

…

[Useless Sage - Bronze] - Tier 0: A useless Merit.

[Champion Killer - Bronze] - Tier 0: A mental alarm warns you of nearby Champions.

[To Play with Pyro - Silver] - Tier 0: Cancel one pending Tribulation.

[Intrepid Explorer - Silver] - Tier 0: Chance compels you toward uncharted lands.

[Fallout Boy - Silver] - Tier 0: Your cells feed on radioactivity.

[“To the Ends of the World!” - Silver] - Tier 0: Dimensional fabric is no longer opaque to your soul.

[The One Who Braved the Deluge - Silver] - Tier 0: Error: No higher Myth fragment detected.

[Reign of Terror - Silver] - Tier 0: A mental compass tracks nearby Nobles.

[Genitaless - Silver] - Tier 0: Your brain is no longer slave to hormones.

[High Tribulation Abortionist - Gold] - Tier 0: You may pause any High Tribulation for a duration dependent on your Soul Tier and Mastery stage.

[Hatched Phoenix - Gold] - Tier 4: Your flames support your flight, but your wings are still weak. Fire draws energy from matter; do the reverse—let Pyro become solid.
[̶L̶O̶C̶K̶E̶D̶]̶ ̶-̶ ̶R̶e̶q̶u̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶[̶I̶d̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶P̶h̶o̶e̶n̶i̶x̶ ̶W̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶-̶ ̶E̶p̶i̶c̶]̶. ACQUIRED.

[Hatched Phoenix - Gold] - Tier 5: Locked. Requires a Legendary Title. NEW

[Jack of All Trades - Legendary] - Tier 0: Allows you to redistribute your attributes, once.

8 Unused Merit Points.

What was a bloodline? Priam didn’t know the full answer. What he knew was that deep within his arteries and veins, buried like embers in ash, a few drops of his blood were more phoenix than human.

When he purchased the Merit, the System descended, and those drops quivered. A heartbeat later, a resonance bloomed between his bloodline and Pyro. A button appeared in his mind. Priam pressed it.

On his back, the incandescent feathers shivered, then grew more tangible. It felt like he could touch them. So he did, smiling. He had succeeded. All that remained was to prove it to the world.

With a mental command, Priam flared his wings. Like the open palms of a titan, they swept down in a mighty beat. A gale of sand spiraled upward, and in the next instant, the grains melted, vitrified by the blazing heat of his fire. Behind him stood a jagged pillar of glass. 

The Juggernaut’s throne.

Suppressing a grin, Priam called upon [Bloodless] for synergy. The trait was elusive, but he revealed it by igniting a mere fraction of a drop of his own blood. The resulting flame could have melted the vault door of any top-tier bunker on Earth. With a thought, Priam reverted the spark to liquid.

Now, the moment of truth.

Priam focused on [Nestling Phoenix’s Wings]. Constructed from aether and flame, his wings lacked veins and arteries. Instead, an intricate system of pathways directed the circulation of both energies. Each linked a blazing feather to its mirrored tattoo along Priam’s back.

The purpose of these pathways was simple: absorb the primordial fluid and the Concept necessary to manifest and sustain the wings. In that way, they were little different from meridians. In fact, each pathway connected to one of Priam’s meridians through its plume tattoo, drawing from it the energy required to fuel its feather.

Thus, the wings were bound to Priam, but that wasn’t enough. To make them into organs, to bring them under Micro’s command, he needed blood to flow through them.

Using [Kinetic Sovereignty], the Ace punctured his own back at the center of each tattooed feather. With the next heartbeat, a few drops of blood escaped.

Following the dance of flame, they rose and wove through the wings like crimson sparks. Where another’s blood might have boiled away, his endured. He was a Pyro Champion.

One droplet reached the base of a feather, which began to vibrate. Thanks to [Bloodless], blood was flame, and flame was blood. The orange hue deepened to a fierce crimson.

A breeze swept past, rustling his feathers, and Priam shivered. The wings were no longer just a tool; they were part of him.

The Juggernaut smiled as Micro updated. He had just shattered the last barrier the Phoenix Prince had described. Now, he was more than a hatched phoenix. The System seemed to agree.

Title upgraded: [Hatched Phoenix - Gold] becomes [Fledged Phoenix - Legendary]!

[Fledged Phoenix - Legendary] - A few drops of blood do not make a phoenix.
One must break the shell. Yours was forged of Pyro, and Unity gave you the strength to shatter it.
One must learn to fly. Your wings finally serve a purpose.
One must leave the nest. It’s the only way to reach Nirvana.
Your wings now draw from any fluid to lift you. Since aether itself is fluid, even space is no longer out of reach.
The sky isn’t the limit. It’s your home.
VIT +30%
DEXT +10% NEW

[Tribulation]: Twelve attributes above 900 were detected in Tier 0.
A Tribulation is coming.
Time: 2 months 11 days 8 hours 17 minutes 40 seconds.

The warning failed to dampen Priam’s grin. With a thunderous wingbeat, he soared into the air, laughing. For the first time since Icarus, a man flew with wings of his own.

And unlike the myth, Priam wasn’t afraid of the sun.

*

Osiris squinted. Even though the box’s glass was enchanted to protect the observers, the synergy between Priam’s Concept and his bloodline was violent. Like being in front of a furnace. Looking directly at the Juggernaut when he wasn’t restraining his power was dangerous.

Despite himself, the teenager couldn’t help but admire the human below. They were only a few years apart, but one was spreading his wings before twenty thousand aliens… while the other was afraid to meet the gaze of the humanoid tree looming behind him.

Does Dishnu know the Tier 5 seed is in my...

Osiris shook his head and forced himself to focus on the fight. Less than thirty seconds remained for Priam to land a hit. Still, the boy wasn’t worried. Crude though it had been, the Champion had successfully connected his wings to his circulatory system. They worked. More than that, they were terrifyi—

A wingbeat. That was all Osiris saw before the Juggernaut became a bolt of fire. A streak of light shot across the arena’s edge, then rebounded in a zigzagging pursuit. He was hunting a golden blur whose lead was shrinking with every heartbeat.

Four feline legs couldn’t outrun the wings of a bird of prey.

Still, the Tier 2 was fighting well. Winds and heat had vitrified the arena’s sand, forming a chaotic forest of glass spires, dunes, and craters that Gold Fangs used to slow Priam at every turn. He likely possessed an epic navigation Skill and an advanced combat sense.

Unfortunately for him, his opponent is a juggernaut. The Juggernaut.

When Gold Fangs arranged a glass column between them, Priam didn’t dodge. He accelerated, relying on his monstrous constitution to annihilate anything that stood between him and his prey.

Soon, the cat ran out of tricks. A stride behind, Priam raised his spear. The strike landed; a bell-like clang shook the entire arena.

As the dust settled, Osiris saw a forcefield shielding the Tier 2 from Promesse’s deadly blade.

“A Mythic Skill?” he murmured.

“No,” answered a rustle of leaves behind him. “An artifact.”

In the arena, Priam blinked, then lifted his gaze toward the Aelbe box.

“I’m impressed a Tier 2 can afford a Tier 3 shield,” he called out, voice dry. “Shame he’s not strong enough to wield a Transcendent item, right?”

Léo didn’t answer. The silence lingered until Zulkar gave a polite cough.

“Twenty seconds.”

Osiris clenched the railing until his knuckles went bone-white. If Priam lost because of some asinine rule…

The Juggernaut snapped his fingers. A cage of aether descended, sealing around his opponent’s shield. This time, every wall was reinforced. Once sure his opponent couldn’t escape, Priam twirled Promesse. When the spear came to rest, it pointed directly at his chest.

“Fire is blood.”

The spear pierced his flesh, and blood gushed from the wound. The crimson torrent gathered into a sphere orbiting its creator, and the orb kept growing.

Osiris, a healer of some repute, stared in disbelief as liters upon liters poured from the wound without end. The Juggernaut’s body was a bottomless spring.

Ten seconds before he would be declared defeated, Priam closed the wound and raised the crimson orb above his head.

“Blood is fire.”

Osiris witnessed the birth of a star. The blood didn’t merely ignite. It became fire. Its brilliance was so intense it seared a dark void in his vision. Its heat so oppressive, each breath scorched his lungs. The blazing body roared in fury, promising annihilation.

Then, the ruin vanished down Priam’s throat.

After healing his retina with a spell, Osiris blinked and gaped in disbelief. The Champion had swallowed his creation. Impossible. Not even he could survive that…

And yet, hovering thirty meters above the arena floor, Priam still lived—though just barely. The Juggernaut was suffering. Thin trails of smoke curled from his nostrils, and his throat glowed the hue of molten steel. Still, he refused to die.

A sigh drifted through the air.

“I’ll shield the crowd,” announced the Demiurge casually. “By the way, you’ve got three seconds.”

The Juggernaut tilted his head toward his opponent, then opened his mouth. Or rather, his maw.

The dragon breathed phoenix fire. The world burned.

*

A searing cascade fell from the heavens and crashed into the ground. A tsunami of flame consumed the arena. A cataclysm not unlike a stellar flare

According to Arnold’s sensors, the Aelbe shield disintegrated in less than a hundredth of a second. It would have been impressive—if its bearer hadn’t already been dead. The barrier hadn’t stopped light. Infrared radiation boiled the feline’s brain even before the firestorm shattered his defense.

Setting aside the now-incinerated Tier 2, the Var Elegis studied his rival’s attack with something bordering on fascination. The smite was as daunting as it was mysterious.

None of his magical probes returned. Not one. All were consumed by the conflagration.

The Concept of the First burned even aether.

After several failed attempts to collect data, the Tyrant sent a message to his home base.

[Search: fireproof material. Priority: High.]

*

Exhaustion hit Priam the moment he closed his mouth. Below him, an ocean of fire raged. A wildfire he commanded through sheer will. The heat was so absolute that whenever flame tried to revert to blood, the liquid vaporized. A crimson mist rose in its place, more familiar to Priam than its pale-white cousin.

A sea of flame. A sky of blood brume. Two Concepts waltzing in a symphony. 

If only he weren’t so tired… With a thought, Priam summoned his creations back. Pyro and mist coiled around him like planetary rings. However, the fire refused to revert into blood. The Champion winced, sensing the magic had left the liquid. Apparently, [Bloodless] had limits.

Dismissed with a thought, both Concepts faded. Priam turned to Zulkar.

“Well?”

“Oh—Ah! Priam—I mean, Death’s Obsession, victor!”

Suppressing the fatigue clawing at his limbs, the Juggernaut strode toward the exit, wrapped in thunderous silence.

*

Status: 

PHYSICAL:
Strength 1 253
Constitution 2 093
Agility 1 652
Vitality 2 092
Perception 990 

MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 666
Dexterity 983 (+89)
Memory 1 152
Willpower 1 298
Charisma 960 

META:
Meta-affinity (O) 1 405
Meta-focus 886 
Meta-endurance 1 587
Meta-perception 861
Meta-chance 1 089
Meta-authority 768 

Potential: 33 707
Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Four Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800  / 1 attribute > 2 100

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Eyes of Mist, Blood of Fire