During his run with the villages, he wasn’t going all out. Not even close. He didn’t know when he’d need to enter the battle for the capital, and soul-strain took far too long to reasonably heal if he wasn’t careful.

  He used his body, his base stats and a few passives, to tear through swarms of monsters. Now, though, in front of God-tier demon-kin? He would work in bursts, pushing himself to the absolute limit to end fights in a reasonable time frame, then flee back to the city to rest; while he didn’t think it would be easy, only time would tell if it was possible.

  He wasn’t at a level where he could disregard the swarms of Elite around, nor did he think he could defeat the past-five-hundred demon-kin on his own, but he wasn’t alone, his friends close at hand and ready to help. Clever and Fendrascora weren’t as powerful as Dei and Perumah, but Clever had unmatched bursts, and Fendrascora’s only goal was to keep Dei’s body together.

  Dei felt Perumah’s vines extend through the upper layer of his soul, through the Soul Strength protective barrier around him, leaving his main body and flesh unmolested. Thorns, sub-nodes under Perumah’s control, pierced through his skin, their roots reaching upwards and grabbing at any demon-kin within range, draining them and spraying their corrupted blood away from Dei and the Gem-Dwellers.

  Sensing the emanations of his target grow closer, his fist caught fire as it came down on the slithering serpentine figure.

  [Vigilance] overclocked, [Overmind] split to take control of the swarm of Connection around him, [Entropic Touch] melted the very air, and [Growing Rage] ran hot through his veins. [Identify of the Stout Protector] branched out from his eyes, overwhelming the snake and ensuring it had no place to escape to, piercing it in multiple places.

  [Demon-Kin - Estimated level 525 by normal standards. 510 by yours.

  Utilizes Shadow, Poison, and Vibration affinities, along with a Domain of the Parted Fate]

  Unlike any other demon-kin he’d scanned, this one barely lost any levels when faced with his qualitative state. It was as strong as Dei would be if he were level five hundred and ten.

  It was four vs… like, a trillion, but four versus one that mattered.

  Releasing the grumbling roar of his Gem Dweller origins, Dei activated [Hollow Cry] over his voice, and the world began to warp

  * * *

  Larm cleaved through another demon-kin’s arm, deflecting its left claw and stabbing it through the chest before pulling back, the strange magic granting him temporary flight weighing upon his soul, just another resource to be managed.

  The beast wasn’t done, but neither was he. His breath came heavily, the days of exhaustion weighing on him.

  After getting his guts torn out and saved by the Gateway Calamity, Larm didn’t hesitate to jump straight back into battle.

  He felt the warmth within him, the bundle of power pushing him forward. After his first brush with death, Larm’s mind was on the verge of breaking, but his friends and family needed him, he couldn’t stop.

  Standing back up the moment the Gateway Calamity left, Larm sprinted down the tunnels to catch up with the next wave but… all the demons around his village were gone. The battle was over, but the war was far from won.

  Days later, they were quickly picked and teleported to the capital by one of the councilors he never even saw, as they were simply moving too quickly.

  Clearly, they didn’t want to waste much time.

  The moment they arrived, the battle-ready Gem-Dwellers were forced to the front. A few begged for a break, but Larm rushed forward with a strange fervor.

  He wanted to stop and hold his wife for a bit longer, but that would be short-sighted. He didn’t want to be with her for an hour, he wanted to have her forever, and he wouldn’t get that with demon-kin at the gate.

  Caught between his despair at the helplessness of it all and the decision to fight anyway, Larm found a warmth soothing his mind, his thoughts growing faster, his actions more decisive.

  It felt overwhelming at times, agonizing even, but that fragment of the Gateway Calamity provided power for his pain, unquantified on his Interface. He remembered it even now, the words seared into his mind.

  [Carry a fragment of the Gateway Calamity’s ??????]

  Whatever he held was only a fragment, and it nearly cooked his brain at times. What did the full brunt of it do?

  He didn’t care, it didn’t matter, all that did was the enemy in front of him. Charging forward, Larm didn’t bother with a battle cry, his cold expression conveying all the hatred he felt for the demon-kin in front of him.

  “Bmmmm”

  The strange sound, briefly deafening though quickly muted, knocked him from the tunnel vision arisen from his exhaustion, looking around, he saw the crater where demon-kin were previously fighting. Recognizing the brief lull for what it was, he quickly cashed in all the experience he’d earned so far, rapidly leveling up and only then trying to use his wits to figure out what was happening.

  Directly in front of him, he saw the flicker of a vibrational barrier that muffled the area outside, protecting him from the clash of the… Gateway Calamity! Right in front of him, the being was back once more, to turn the tide again. This time, it was far larger, and far fiercer, even the periphery of its battle deemed dangerous enough to warrant Shamanic attention.

  The demon-kin quickly filled the void, swallowing the Gateway Calamity and obscuring Larm’s vision.

  A monstrous roar resounded, and a flash of light illuminated two figures through the gray cloud of bodies, the Gateway Calamity facing off against a long curling form.

  Thunder split the air and the demon-kin, unprotected by the barrier, were either stunned or dropped to the ground, leaving only the Elite surviving to charge forward.

  As much as Larm wanted to meet the wave, he knew his place. This would be a battle he could not assist in, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other fronts to fight on.

  Fleeing to give room for the stronger soldiers to work with, Larm could barely pry his eyes from the obscuring veil of gray.

  Every few seconds, a roar from the Gateway Calamity would resound, the white flash illuminating them step by step.

  One had the Gateway holding a two-headed snake at bay, barely preventing it from piercing his neck.

  The next flash, mere seconds later, his slap cleaved through six of the twenty heads.

  The succeeding blast of light was suppressed by a cage of infinitely expanding strikes, coming down on the Gateway Calamity from all directions. Larm’s heart skipped, fearing the worst for his saviour

  * * *

  Dei met the snake head on, the space around his fist warping as reality rippled from the entropic vortex surrounding it.

  The scream of his [Hollow Cry] imbued the air with his fury, his hatred of the demon-kin, and all the pain of death.

  White light flashed, the memories of agony within his soul crying out, reaching towards the demon-kin, manifesting as a tower of crying faces and overlapping arms grabbing at one another, crawling from his throat to grab at any victim in range.

  Demon-kin all around Dei were lashed out against and pulled into the pillar of pure Soul and Death. The world began to warp around crying humanoid bodies that rapidly crawled their way out of the pillar to fill the space around them. They cracked and flaked, but not before making their fury known to any they may get their hands on, tearing demon-kin apart without prejudice.

  The Viper, as Dei would call it, bit the pillar, and a green tint corrupted any of the figures too close, accelerating their destruction faster than they could approach, its whipping movement enough to let out a crack in the air that stunned or killed many of its surrounding subordinates. Dei’s fist followed his pillar of light, cracking down on the snakes head, but… kind of missing, as the snake pulled away from its harm, a second version of itself lashing out at Dei as an alternate timeline, though involving no Time mana if the words of his friends were to be trusted.

  ‘Domain of Parted Fate, that’s its godly power.’

  One half of itself was harmed yet continued to fight, the other bit into Dei’s arm faster than he could react, pumping him full of venom- yet another pulled back, conserving its lethal reserve, instead merely biting him.

  Dei felt two bite wounds appear, and one of them was filled with white hot agony.

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  Perumah dealt with the head still attached, filling its throat and brain with a hive of flesh traps, tearing it apart and leaving that body, that fate dead. They all felt intrinsically attached, all occupying the same space, but Dei could feel a difference between them. It was more than another head, their bodies could and may diverge if he forced it to, and it would all be the same snake.

  The bodies of the demon-kin slain by the Viper barely had a moment to fall before Dei saw all of them explode into a dark mist, pure Phantom Plague falling onto Dei as their corpses were used as bombs, causing the last of his first [Hollow Cry] to be disintegrated.

  Ashvorn took control of several of his Connections at his behest, whipping through the cloud and cutting a path for Dei to act through. Those hairs would be severely damaged, but not utterly destroyed as they would have been without Ashvorn working to directly combat the foreign energy.

  The flicker of distraction from the lethally dangerous energy was enough for the two surviving heads to lunge at Dei’s throat, his hands barely coming up enough to grab them, the Flesh Traps on his hands immediately piercing their skin in the same moment that Dei activated a point blank [Hollow Cry] into the face of the one held in his right.

  The agony manifested uniquely as instead of a swarm forming, a gaping maw of tentacles jumped forward, biting the Viper’s head and tearing it off- but not before the demon-kin managed to split both heads once more, leaving it with three as the kraken was pulled back into his soul, Ashvorn working overtime to suppress the Phantom Plague he’d accidentally ingested.

  ‘Woops,’ he thought, his stomach in a loop of melting and repairing itself as it spilled acid all over his organs; he put that to the back of his mind as Fendrascora worked to redirect what she could and serve as a replacement for whichever organs shut down from damage, letting Dei continue fighting.

  The Viper let out a resonant hum, and both the venom and its consumed body part responded, shaking apart his insides and tearing flesh. The three heads split and snapped forward, and for the first time, Dei briefly dove into the Spirit Realm, quickly moving behind the Viper before it knew he was gone, then forcing his way back in with a crack as he landed on its back, hands coated in Void digging into its flesh.

  While entropy would be nice for damaging it, Dei was starting to realize its domain could simply avoid superficial harm. He needed to strike it where it counted.

  All six of its bodies were locationally overlapping. He didn’t know if that was a requirement for its abilities or a coincidence, but it provided a convenient medium to interact with.

  Dictating that Fate was an “Intangible enemy,” Dei grabbed at the concept itself using the boon granted by his [Void Walker] Mark within the Viper, Void coiling around the space between the Viper and its domain as Dei reached into the echo of a soul it had and pulled.

  Though the concept slipped through his fingers, only twenty percent of it caught by him, that was enough for it to go haywire- heads flickering in and out of reality violently, some overlapping and dying while others appeared in unexpected places, taking the chance to bite Dei’s lower body while he kicked off the beast to put distance between them.

  They wouldn’t let him go. Rather than fill him with venom to melt him, several heads bit him and simply held on, keeping him in place, pulling him down into the Viper’s grasp. When Dei tried to hit several of them, they would overlap with their own fates, dispersing the blow to near harmlessness.

  Despite the dire situation, Dei smirked, raising his hand up into an open palm while he signaled to Fendrascora to bring out his secret weapon.

  Jacob appeared on his hand, and as Dei swung down, the man went face-first into the demon-kin while Dei let out a [Hollow Cry], hissing this time in much the same way as the Viper itself and being rewarded with a den of serpents launching out and coiling around the demon-kin, lining multiple heads up as best they could.

  Countless heads appeared and overlapped, but six fates were utterly wrecked, caught in the path of something which could not be denied.

  The Viper hissed quietly and withdrew before Dei could swing again, and Dei’s hollow cry retreated into him.

  The demon-kin’s tongue flickered out of its mouth and it stopped to pause for a moment before supposedly deciding on something.

  The bodies finally separated, but its heads began to knit themselves together, breaking off and twisting faster than Dei had ever seen it. The crackling energy released from its soul and picked up by Dei’s sensitivity to death told him it was going for one final suicide attack, burning through its very domain to trap him inside.

  He knew teleporting in a swarm of demon-kin would be suicide, the energies within them enough to shred all mana, so he attempted to flee- but a resonant hiss once again activated the copious venoms within him.

  Fendrascora had protected his heart, filtering what she could, but still, he was weakened and pulled by the Viper, its multitude of fated bodies forming a cocoon around him. A threatening growl manifested long, humanoid appendages that reminded Dei of Okrin’s own, reaching out and grabbing or crushing anything they could, prying an opening through the cage yet failing as tens of biting Viper’s broke through Dei’s defenses, further locking him down to ensure he could not escape.

  Internally Dei felt several karmic threads from his Meditation disappear, cut off by the severed fate delivered to him. The limitless heads grabbed at his left arm, the one most injured and melted by venom, pulling it. He grunted in pain as the tearing of his muscles told him that it would soon come off, despite Fendrascora and Perumah stitching through it as quickly as they could.

  Dei considered the drastic measure of entering his Manifestation form, but that would put him out of commission until after the demon-raid was over, a death sentence for the Gem-Dwellers. Before he could think of another solution, though, Clever spoke up, appearing to wrap around Dei’s neck where Fendrascora delivered him, larger now and just wide enough to wrap around the back of his neck from one shoulder to the other.

  “Home,” he declared, and Dei felt a searing, healing warmth appear on his back to accompany the welcoming hum that filled his ears.

  Dei finally saw in the demon-kin’s body language that it felt an emotion of some kind- disbelief.

  The world was drowned in a wall of red and orange.

  * * *

  Unlike an affinity that actually utilized the deeper concepts of time, the demon-kin’s Parted Fate failed to obscure its actions from Clever’s foresight, letting him see all the potential outcomes for the fight.

  Dei, alone, was very outmatched. Teleporting was suicide, even through the insular use of Connection because several surrounding elite demon-kin awaited that exact circumstance. His message to Dei warning him of this was intercepted by Perumah, though he was not angry as he knew her response already.

  “It will be a distraction. Allow me to tie the warning into his subconscious.”

  Dei, as a result, never attempted to teleport during the battle, conveniently forgetting that Connection should be “Safe” to use when surrounded by enemies.

  ‘Perumah…’ he thought, still unsure of where to place her in his mind.

  During every battle he foresaw, she managed the background of everything, coordinating to ensure Dei wasn’t interrupted. Though the demon-kin had no emotions to manipulate, he saw her implanting constructs within them to puppet, giving them minds to destroy. It was not enough to kill them, but it let her injure elite demon-kin enough to send them fleeing to heal their wounds. Those that got too close were faced with imploding bulbs that would crunch them down, where she could slap away their remnants.

  She helped Fendrascora keep his organs running, even granting some of the vitality she’d previously stolen from Dei in short bursts, granting localized healing.

  What drew his attention the most, though, wasn’t her battle, but her outcome. In no world did she ever leave Dei, going as far as to even quietly put Clever to sleep in the singular timeline where he tested what would happen if he tried to hinder Dei by interrupting or distracting him. He cut that outcome off right after, but the result provided Clever with the information that she protected Dei’s back, even from those closest to him. Dei didn’t even consider the possibility of betrayal, but Perumah held Clever and Fendrascora under a microscope, even if they were friends.

  The end of every battle was the same though- they were facing a god-tier entity, sacrifices had to be made. It always went the same.

  Dei thought about using an ability that would severely damage his soul, shrugging it off to instead gamble on whether one of his “Sealing” spells could lock away the demon-kin within his storage before the demon affinity killed him.

  Before he could, though, Perumah would cast… something… that deleted a portion of the demon-kin, cutting grooves into its existence that could not be healed before it perished.

  Whatever it was, though, took its toll, forcing Perumah into some kind of hibernation where she had to focus on healing her soul. This, in turn, sent Dei into a flurry of rage, tearing through swarms of demon-kin where he should have retreated. He would survive, but the damage would render him out of commission for far longer.

  Clever had to make an appearance, but even his beam wasn’t enough to fully nullify the demon-kins suicide attack.

  Not as it was.

  Clever stood now in front of the Molten Core, and it asked him “What is Fire to you?”

  What was fire to him?

  He thought of his mother’s gentle jaw, constantly radiating heat from her throat to ensure he and his siblings didn’t freeze, of burning the magma monster to save his sister’s life, and her attempts at warming him afterwards.

  He thought of using it to free Fendrascora from her cage so long ago, and his desire to stand between Dei and any threats, to ward off any danger.

  He remembered how violating it felt for the Smiler to turn his beam onto his only friend, to force Clever to attempt to kill Dei, and even his own timeline’s resistance to the order that it would have to attack Dei, instead choosing to irritate him instead. Clever’s fire wasn’t meant to hurt, it was meant to protect. Even if it had to destroy another for the purpose of saving his friends and family, it would do so, but only to help the ones he loved, not to kill the ones he hated.

  He thought of sitting beside the hearth of the Grrata family’s home, observing the strange flame-like crystal that warmed him, lulling him to sleep.

  Fire, in many different forms, were steps along his path, his protective light, the one thing that’d stuck with him every moment of every day, providing comfort in his darkest moments.

  So, what was fire to him?

  It was safety, security, love, and family.

  It was… “Home,” he answered the fire within him, and he felt the barrier separating him from the fire fall.

  It seeped into his soul, burning him to ash and yet building him anew.

  [Affinity evolved: Heat has evolved into Fire]

  [Skill Altered: Blazing Breath has been altered into Incinerate]

  [Title Altered: Molten Core has awakened into Power]

  He emerged from Fendrascora’s world, wrapping himself as best he could around Dei’s neck, opening his mouth to point towards the demon-kin that now surrounded them.

  Sweeping his head in a sideways arc, a red-white beam consumed the one that would hurt Clever’s friends.

  Its body was destroyed, its domain shattered, its very soul catching ablaze, all fuel for the endless consumption it found itself a victim of.

  It cried out in pain, the few heads remaining recoiling and attempting to split off from those infected by the quenchless fire.

  It couldn’t sever their fates, all racing towards its core. Every new self grown found itself dark and charred, the remaining heads only capable of screaming as its body fell down to the unseen floor, crushing many of the demon-kin beneath it as a thud muffled by the wall of bodies told them of its fate moments after the vital notification appeared.

  [You have killed a post-500 demon-kin]