Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

Sorin's joints creaked as an unfortunate spatial current ripped at his body and attempted to separate him from his companions. Though it failed to achieve its goal thanks to its group's spatial cohesion medallions, it did a number on Sorin's vitality stores and would have proved fatal had the transmission not lasted longer than three seconds.

They landed on a paved street with a loud thud. Corruption immediately assaulted them but halted just shy of a silver halo each of them gave off. The exception, of course, was Sorin's tarnished gold halo, which didn't chase away corruption but invited it.

A potent wind screamed across their location, bringing with it nightmares and ghosts with soul-draining effects. Clawed hands broke through paving stones and reached for their ankles, while shadows coiled around their bodies, causing a frigid cold to invade them.

A few well-timed fireballs suddenly ended the creatures. These were quickly followed by twenty-one fireballs that swirled around their group and frightened away would-be demonic invaders.

"Incoming," said Lawrence, sharing a 360-degree view of their surroundings. At his current level, he had near-perfect vision in a 300-foot radius.

"We're being swarmed on all sides," said Gareth. "Stephan, taunt them!"

"On it," said Stephan, transforming into a Silver Spine Grizzly Bear with integrated soul-bound armor. He let out a deep growl that established enmity between him and all other nearby creatures, regardless of obstructing walls, dirt, or stone.

Three-foot-long poisonous centipedes emerged from the ground. A swarm of a thousand hawks flew in from the star-speckled sky in Stephan's direction.

"Daphne!" shouted Gareth, letting loose a rain of arrows.

"On it," said Daphne, steering a carpet of fireballs to defend Stephan. She replenished the fireballs as they detonated, prioritizing large clusters of enemies and allowing the others to deal with the rest.

"Who can we spare?" Sorin asked Gareth.

"Astley," said Gareth. "You're up first."

"Will it hurt?" asked Astley, approaching Sorin.

"Only if you want it to," said Sorin. He threw 206 golden needles into a bottle of Bronze Unsealing Tincture, then expertly pierced them into each of Astley's bones to guide the poison.

Astley's bone runes have to do with summoning, mystery, ritual, and history, thought Sorin as he approximated the runes and the corresponding spell-breaking arrangement.

Having practiced beforehand, it only took Sorin ten minutes to completely unseal her bones. The ruby runes rapidly disintegrated, revealing a bronze inner structure that thrummed with great power.

"How do you feel?" asked Sorin as the mana flow in Astley's body sped up and her abilities amplified.

"I feel amazing," said Astley. "Though not as amazing as I thought I would."

Sorin nodded. "You started at ruby grade, so your experiences are limited. There's only a 33% difference in upgrading from ruby to bronze. As for your progress to silver bones, you're only at 51 percent. The Silver Bone Cracking Tincture will help, but it'll need to wait until the rest of the group has their bronze bones unsealed."

"Astley, we need summons to hold these demons off while Daphne takes her turn," shouted Gareth.

"On it," said Astley, taking out her grimoire. "I've been itching to use these elites I captured in the second level." Black smoke oozed out of the book to produce six five-meter-tall humanoid demons with blades running down each of their limbs. "Blade Storm," she commanded." Each demon activated an ability that surrounded Stephan in a curtain of sharp light, buying him valuable time to down one of Sorin's specialty healing potions.

"How much of a difference will my unsealing make, anyway?" asked Daphne as Sorin repeated the unsealing process on her bones.

"It's significant," said Sorin. "Think of bones as a multiplier. Emerald bones give a two-fold multiple, sapphire a four-fold multiplier, and ruby a six-fold multiplier. Bronze bones give an eight-fold multiplier."

"Let me guess," said Daphne. "Silver bones are a ten-fold multiplier. Not very impressive."

Sorin shook his head. "You're wrong. Silver bones give a twenty-fold multiplier, which is why this is going to take a lot longer than with Astley."

The difficulty lay in the fact that Daphne's ruby bones had already been modified with silver runes during her Heroic Breakthrough. Great care was needed to avoid damaging her existing runes while simultaneously dissolving the lesser-quality ruby runes.

But the rewards were well worth it. If improving Astley's bones was akin to slightly widening a trench, improving Daphne's bones was akin to doubling the width of a river. Sorin could feel the mana as it gushed through her bones, improving not only her physical prowess and reflexes but also her substantial mental and magical capabilities.

Fireballs appeared in the air as Daphne regained control over her strength. Each of them was thirty percent larger than before and traveled much quicker as well. They spiraled outwards with Stephen as a point of origin, blasting apart the demons that were swarming him, all the while multiplying in number.

Ten, twenty, thirty… the number continued to grow until there were a full fifty fireballs. Daphne let out a witchlike cackle. "If fire can't solve all your problems, you're just not using enough of it!"

With two casters, a tank, and an archer guarding their team, Gareth was able to spare Lawrence. Like Daphne, his bones were difficult to unseal, but the result was startling.

Sorin had never seen Lawrence's full speed since his Heroic Breakthrough, but he'd guessed it was impressive since his Heroic Empowerment was speed-based. It turns out he'd underestimated the rogue.

The moment Lawrence's silver bones lit up, he burst out with a speed that bordered on teleportation. Demons dropped like flies at a speed Sorin could barely keep up with.

Unfortunately, moving so fast was draining Lawrence's low stamina reserves, forcing him to tone down his effort. His improvements, however, were more than sufficient for Gareth and receive treatment.

Like Astley's treatment, Gareth only experienced a minor increase in strength. What's more, Gareth's silver bones were far from unsealing.

"You're only at twenty-one percent unsealed? That doesn't make sense." The number irked Sorin for some reason, but he couldn't put his finger on why."

"I honestly have no idea why that is either," said Gareth. "Maybe it has something to do with your attainments? I received a skill when I made my choice, you know. It binds my advancement to yours."

Sorin's frown deepened. Currently, his bones were fully silver, though they had suffered damage he hadn't been able to heal, resulting in inactive white bones that lacked runes. A crude estimate put the total damage at 21 percent.

"I'll see if I can figure it out," said Sorin. "Maybe I just need to complete all five forgings and temperings." Wishful thinking, he knew, but it was all he could come up with.

Having completed all five treatments, Sorin stood up and looked overhead, where a dense power signature had been resonating with his own divine power for over half of Gareth's treatment. "Are you just going to keep watching as we destroy your minions, Melinoë, or are you going to come out to talk?"

Clapping noises sounded from all directions. The demons in the city stopped mid-combat and ceased their assault. "Well done, Sorin. You managed to unseal all their bones in less than three hours. You're truly the greatest prodigy the Kepler Clan has seen since the Cataclysmic Emergence."

"What do you want, Melinoë? " Sorin asked as the God Seed appeared on the nearest unbroken rooftop. "I see you're still as cowardly as ever. Why not use your true body instead of incarnations? There's nothing you can do to us as you are now."

"Sorin, incarnations shouldn't be possible at her level," warned Daphne.

"Anything is possible for me in the catacombs of Delphi, dear," said Melinoë. "My abilities only grow the closer I get to the Source of Corruption."

"Should I shoot her and be done with it?" asked Gareth.

Sorin shook his head. "What do you want, Melinoë?" he repeated.

"I'm just here for obligatory banter," said Melinoë. "Our greatest battle to date is just around the corner, so I thought I'd give you the opportunity to take your own lives."

"Really?" cut in Lawrence. "The whole 'take your own lives' trope? Daphne, do they still do that in books these days?"

"All the time," said Daphne. "People eat it up like candy. Just like they do teen angst and schoolyard bullying."

"At least someone has taste," said Melinoë. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes, I offered to let you take your own lives, and now you've refused. Next is scolding you for not appreciating favors. And finally, I gloat for having successfully stalled for time."

"Um," said Lawrence, raising his hand. "I'm pretty sure we did that on our own."

"Agreed," said Sorin. "You wasted maybe a minute of our time at best."

"But a minute could mean the difference between life and death," said Melinoë. "As you'll certainly find out. For the record, I knew where you were the moment you set foot in the catacombs. In fact, I arranged for you all to appear in this specific location, all so I could take care of the greatest threat to my plan up front."

The ground shook, and dust rose from the cracked and broken streets. "Um, guys? I'm getting a really bad feeling about this," said Lawrence.

"Something's coming," said Stephan, shifting into his Arctic Rune Bear form. "Something big."

"I'm done talking with her, Gareth," said Sorin. "Shoot her."

An arrow tore through Melinoë's figure, scattering it into black smoke that drifted back into the city. "Did it work?" Gareth asked Sorin.

"Somewhat," said Sorin. "I managed to lightly poison her and can now sense her location and the location of all her incarnations. There are roughly ten of them scattered throughout the city. Her main incarnation is over there." He pointed towards the center of the city where the Administrator's Manor was located. "Not the Shrine of Delphi as we had suspected might be possible."

"Astley, how long until your ritual is complete?" said Gareth.

"Just finishing it up right now," said Astley, blowing out a candle. Twelve identical candles placed in a circle snuffed out in unison, filling the circle with black smoke that flowed into each of their group members.

"Lawrence, have you discovered the enemy yet? Where is it even coming from? My bird can't see anything," said Gareth.

"I think I can almost make something out," said Lawrence, who was kneeling with his palm on the ground. "I don't see anything above ground, but if my guess is correct—look out!"

An image flashed in their minds, one of a red-eyed creature that had just entered Lawrence's sphere of perception from below. It was moving fast—so fast that they barely had time to scatter before the earth burst open, revealing a massive serpent with glistening blue scales.

Sorin immediately recognized the serpent. "Python. She's really not messing around, is she?"

"Guys, we can't handle this thing," warned Lawrence. "Its power level is through this place's weird ceiling."

"Agreed," said Gareth. "Lawrence, can you group us up and get us out of here?"

"I'll be there in a jiffy," said Lawrence.

Sorin felt his shadow expand and a hand reaching out for him; his shadow took the hand, and seconds later, he found himself near his companions. Python was abnormally quick for its size and already biting down on their position. Yet it bit on nothing but shadows as Lawrence led Sorin and company to a dark corner at the edge of his sphere of perception.

"Damn, that takes a lot out of me," said Lawrence as they ran onto the open street. Demons swarmed them from all sides, but a volley of fireballs instantly annihilated half their numbers. "Let's be sparing on jumps, okay?"

Sorin a spray of poison needles that melted two dozen demons using Eater of All. Life force was siphoned back into his body, making up for part of the damage he'd suffered from the teleportation process.

Gareth led them down Cobbler's Row, a street lined with decrepit shoe shops, of which only a quarter were still standing.

"These shops," said Gareth. "I've seen their names before in Delphi proper."

"They're likely owned by descendants of the original owners," said Astley. "This is consistent with mystical principles of similarity and bloodline. I'm beginning to see why they maintained the catacombs instead of razing the original city."

"It's coming for us again," warned Lawrence.

"We can literally all see the same scene thanks to Gareth," snapped Stephan, picking up the pace. Astley, Daphne, and Gareth had already jumped onto him and were using him as an artillery platform to clear the way forward.

"How much did that jump take out of you, Lawrence?" asked Gareth.

"About twenty percent," said Lawrence, taking a sip of a toxic mana potion. Sorin immediately drained the poison to relieve its negative effects. "I could probably do this about ten times if I factor in Sorin's potions. About enough to get us halfway to the center."

"We need a different solution," said Sorin. "Maybe I could draw its attention while you guys escape? I could be wrong, but I'm probably its primary target."

Gareth immediately shot the idea down. "That's not happening. That thing is much too strong. We'll need the entire team to pull through."

"Then let me, Lawrence, and Lorimer distract it for a bit while you guys gain ground," insisted Sorin.

"He has a point, Gareth," said Lawrence. "Transporting the three of us will be a lot easier than transporting all of us. Especially Stephan."

"Are you making fun of my weight?" growled Stephan.

Gareth grimaced but ultimately agreed. "Fine. Astley, what are the results of your divination?" The myth binder had taken out a dousing pendant while Daphne and Gareth bombarded the demons in their path."

"Just three more seconds," muttered Astley. Her pendant twirled clockwise three times before shooting out towards an alternate location. She then tapped a point on Gareth's mini-map. "This is currently the place we should flee to. Why that is, I have no idea."

Gareth nodded. "We won't make it to the middle of the city, but this point seems doable as long as we buy ourselves a little bit more time."

"So, are you doing this or not?" asked Lawrence. "Because taunting this Python fellow seems like a great way to bolster my reputation."

"Don't be suicidal," said Stephan. "You already broke through to the two-star level!"

"But what about the three-star level, Stephan? " said Lawrence. "This is why Haley gets on your case all the time! You've got to take the initiative!"

"Let's get going," said Sorin. "Lorimer, it'll be easier if you stay outside of my pocket."

"Ree!" Lorimer screeched.

"I'm with him," said Lawrence. "Let's teach that ugly snake who's boss!"