Chapter fifty-one

  Unknown danger. Step one, [Stride Before the Fall]. Ker-k. Double the pain, overpping vision, dislocation, like a shoulder or knee, but worse, as it was different and not physical. There was no sed body. The skill that worked through being silenced or crushed by authority failed, at least partially.

  My skills! The Harmonies echoed, not diverged enough as two senses of self shared the internal space she was focused on. Not that [Stride] shared the same p her that other skills with their isnd-like nodes existed, but she could check those ones. Normal aggravation at the intense pain rumbled through them. [Mana Rotation] was a little choppy.

  If this had been too much authority crushing down, causing the skills to rupture, there would have been no escape. The increase from the crowd was there, but it was all good vibes and awe. It wasn't straining her system.

  This assault was different. Getting inside someone's soul to attack it wasn’t easy. Only with effort and iy did she mao forcefully go in and break a skill. There was a reason she couldn't [Manipute Dead] someone's retly eaten lunch or healers couldn't twist their skills to be harmful easily.

  There was no jab or something new shoved into her. The water? But she hadn’t taken a drink. Could a skill poison be something coated on the gss? That was one dire her mi.

  A different egress? Adric! Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The bonds went both ways at times and that would allow access.

  The dual sciousness zoomed their attention onto the primal bond. Adric was distressed because she was suffering, but he wasn't the issue.

  A flicker of almost a vibrating temperature differential. After feeling The Arrow of Many Things, Harmony knew what that energy was.

  Sir Maxwell’s oath. He was carrying her burden now, and through that oath, a pathway had formed. Now someone or something was getting in. As the two Harmonies sharing the space got closer, corre, not getting in, but ripping stuff out.

  The light e that would take some Authority as part of the knight's responsibilities was now a rent open inside her, with bits of chaos pulling it wider. That nasty stuff wasn’t going inside Harmony. It was ag from the Max side of his oath to her. That wider hole with tribution from chaos helped pull bits of her away, a sprinkling of energy a from all her skills, more authority, even a sliver of death from her css and properness of her maid profession.

  The bloody thing wasn’t slowing down. It sped up and yaronger on her esseo battle it she had two minds floating aimlessly inside herself while her body was locked up in a distrag amount of pain. The first Harmony pulled from [Cold Touch] sending a freezing chill through her soul hoping to slow the pulling movement.

  She could feel her lips turn blue ah rattle, but slowing that transfer didn’t happen. It ate up the cold. The fluctuating state of chaos flickered almost like ughter as it was ued.

  [Final Sileo e it, yet even that did nothing.

  “Think!” She mentally yelled to herself. Two minds, even the same one should be able to do something.

  [Renew Spirit] synergized with [Mend] to seal the wound. Lean into es and synergy to bend some rules. This would be like stitg up a hole in a dress. Invisible threads started to shrink the hole along its edges.

  The skill uhe full dire of one of her minds slipped a little, interseg with a fsh of chaos. The half of herself that touched it screamed, and the backsh sent everything buzzing with a fsh of red. The operation wasn’t successful as the loss of trol let that modified teique fall into the chaos-filled e with Max.

  One of her was alright. All she o do was use that same teique with no mistakes. [Recall] and all the rest of her skills flickered weakly from the draining, No perfect memory to pull on. Gathering all that energy to do it again would...

  “You’re thinking too much! There is only ever room for one of us to be here. Whoever this bastard is, they choke on me.”

  The wounded sense of self kicked off.

  “Wait!”

  There was no waiting. No, she had made a choice. There could only be ohat crashed into the t chaotic oath. And choke it did, as that oddly ected existence of herself from [Stride] twisted in.

  Ambrosia had always said she had an oversized sense of importanow she put it to good use.

  It filled it in, leaving an ag throbbing spot where Max’s oath was, ged now, subverted and different. All lethal enough that she felt [Stride Before the Fall] level.

  Harmony drifted bato her body. Curses did it hurt. The restoration position covered her mouth enough for her to cough at the fn substance. Bodyguards surrounded her with their ons out, while one of them, Suze from the city guard with her messy cut hair k with the empty vial in her hands.

  “She’s awake!” The guard yelled

  If the cert hadn’t charged her up then how empty would she be feeling? All that work from those levels to her stability gnawed away at. So close to dying. Through that, she leveled again.

  Choose your Css’s Sixth skill: Raise Specter - Shadowed Graves - Tortuous Wound

  No Time for that. That burning oath inside her had two sides to it. Harmony pushed herself up onto shaky legs. “Something’s happeo Sir Maxwell. We have to go to him!”

  “You ’t be serious.” Nick of the guild bodyguards pined.

  “Whatever happeo me came through him. His oath. We have to secure him or at least figure out what happened.” Harmony crified.

  The bodyguard looked like he wao fight her on it. “Anyone know where Lady White’s knight is?”

  Ambrosia knew. With her [anization] and [Scheduling] skills she kept track of where everyone was staying. It made her painfully flicted about not leading the charge herself. After the cert was almost as busy as all the prep beforehand.

  “Go, do your things. We've got this.” It would take too long to cut the performer out of her getup anyway and Harmony was impatient to get to Max. And someone o watch Hyath who’d passed out from his end of the experience. [Familiar Bond] had him healthy, but she wouldn't wake him for this.

  Ambrosia gave a low whistle. One of her Pets, the blue and white one, flew down and Landed on Harmony's head. “At least I be with you in more than just spirit. Watch her, Mordecai.”

  Max had been staying at one of his family's houses he Dragonfly Inn, but that ged once he got the [Chaos Seed]. Fighting family expectations was hard, but why did he have to move into a brothel?

  The fact that it was called the Milking Maid felt like an affront to her. Women in various states of dress moved in and out of the building. If someone had forced in they were probably subtle about it.

  With the guards entering first and ons loose there was no fusion. Nick was already talking to the unseemly man who ran the pce.

  “No one has e up to see Maxy, there was some screaming earlier that disturbed my girls, But his door was firmly locked and there was no response.”

  “What room?” Harmony pressed, Entering the versation.

  “He is up the stairs and all the way back to the right. I'm sure he'll be up in the m.”

  Ign the owhey moved. It was locked and with a nod, two bodyguards broke the door with skill-empowered strikes and it tipped in with a crash.

  Papers on the floor scattered, each filled with densely packed script, a product of training scribe skills. Dim half-charged glow stones provided limited lighting, revealing toppled chairs, and more scattered papers. A shirtless slumped over Max y in the middle of the mess. Thick goop covered him making the room smell of vanil.

  “Evolutioh.” One of the guards mumbled.

  Despite the tossed-up room and sad state of her knight. There had been no fight or f Maxwell to do anything. [Keen Iigative Awareness] helped firm he'd been locked in his room alone.

  Harmony Stood over the unsan. To think that she’d e all this way to try to save him from whatever forces were using him to get to her. She reached out with A [Cold Touch] infused [Renew Spirit]. The shog wake-up treatment had Max's eyes snap wide open while he inhaled a deep breath.

  “What did you do!?” Harmony demanded.