The demon-kin biting into him was some kind of leech twice as long as himself, countless long grasping arms ringing its mouth that reached towards Dei.
The moment its outer teeth touched his scales, though, instinct kicked in and he curved, flexing his muscles to whip his lower body, darting forward and out of the mouth before it could pull him in.
A tugging sensation fought against him, but the chaos of the collapsing Realm kicked up a violent storm as the mana of thirteen other layers converged into a single one, exploding outwards.
The creature, so prepared for Dei’s arrival, was cast away from him as a tornado pulled it away violently.
Aloran rapidly spoke in his head, “Dei, that is a Giant Charybdis, as in Path of the Titan, and a Tyrant-Lizard, both of which are strong enough to be the Commander. This is an assassination attempt on you! The twelve divine demon-kin above aren’t the main force, they’re the distraction! You’re the target!”
‘Oh… Fuck. I.. was tricked? I sent Clever away… Dammit… ‘ his attention flickered to Perumah, ‘But they didn’t account for everything.’
“I will pull some strings, all you need to do is survive! Five minutes Dei, buy me five minutes and dive as deep into the Spirit Realm as you can. You may lose contact with me, don’t panic.”
Survive.
An old objective, one he was familiar with. He didn’t need to win, he needed to live.
Not even throwing a glance backwards, he dove, shooting through the layers as quickly as he could to put distance between them- he didn’t even make it to the nineteenth before a whirlpool produced by the Charybdis slowed his descent
He wasted no time in transforming his body, several clawed limbs sprouting along him like fins as he grabbed at the realm, dragging himself forward.
The demon-kin were not stagnant though, and he sensed the maw plunge towards him, supposedly seeking to envelope his body.
He reached towards [Roving Gate] and felt its warning- the area was turbulent, something was overtly attempting to suppress his teleportation, but it did so in a way familiar and weak to Void. ‘Space?’
It wasn’t like Time that was outside of Void’s purview, but it wouldn’t let him do what he wanted to either.
‘I don’t need to go far, just a bit to the left.’
He extended his lines of Connection, forcing Void mana down them, doing the best he could to stop his influence from being shredded. A dark cord of mana slammed into the interference and held; Dei felt a spell form in his soul.
Right before the massive demon-kin bit down, he vanished and instantly found himself at its side. Diving in, he gripped it opened his mouth over it not to bite down, but release.
He was nowhere near the Shamans, so he let [Hollow Cry] carry the weight and pain that burdened his soul. The grudge clawing at his mind suddenly found itself free, rushing down his throat to declare its rage.
At the last second, he saw the Tyrant Lizard step out of a shadow in the scales of the Giant, directly in the center of the blast where Dei’s spell would land.
His throat already glowed with a fiery red, too late to cancel the effect, but Dei did not think the monster was dumb enough to kill itself. A blast of encompassing fury tore from his mouth with such force that he felt some of his own organs rupture.
He watched the wide beam curve and narrow, focusing on the Tyrant as ninety percent landed upon it.
He watched the dinosaur bask in the mana, lines forming along it in a familiar way that told Dei it, too, was marked by a Wrath curse, jagged edges burned into its flesh; based solely on its response to the mana, Dei knew Wrath was its everything.
Still, despite it absorbing most of the impact, his grudge was not to be denied; the Charybdis was hit with a much-reduced blast, and its flesh was charred. Lines of Connection melted it, Entropy running amok within it as Dei dared it to sacrifice its own life force to send Phantom Plague at him.
Beneath the Tyrant, a pulsing red cancer formed under the Giant’s skin, and Dei felt a resonance with it- his grudge had found a new medium, a new way to potentially strike at Iora, and was now attempting to take over the Charybdis to attack her.
Dei didn’t have the time to think about what it meant long-term as he was already pulling back, expecting the Tyrant to attack now that it’d absorbed an utterly terrifying amount of his mana.
Not fast enough; it vanished from the Giant, appearing beneath his jawbone as it drew itself from his shadow.
He reinforced his neck with everything he had, the flesh beneath completely disappearing as his brain was briefly disconnected from the rest of his body as he created a localized heartbeat to keep the organ alive. Everything below the dinosaur’s feet were scales and bone.
It didn’t stop the demon-kin, its tail whipping out as a crescent of Wrath sliced through him like butter, completely beheading him. If he were a lesser creature, that would’ve ended the fight, but he already knew that his brain was not a requirement to survival any longer, only coordinating his senses.
There were no blood vessels or nerves in his neck, the plate of bone he’d put up suddenly exposed to the air but he ignored it. A [Soul Echo] let him perceive enough for his tail to curve up and connect with the head, his senses returning abruptly as his body shifted itself to its new orientation.
The Charybdis was still mid-curve in trying to snap at him, but he swam long the bottom of its body, remaining out of its sight to dive into the twentieth la-
“DING”
A gong-like reverberation found its way through his flesh, a hostile form of Echo mana resonating with him; every organ was partially torn open, including his skin, gouts of blood spraying everywhere before [Divine Balance] changed its tune to resist the new threat.
‘[Weakness to Echo],’ he remembered, ‘This really is a targeted attack. They even have my one Weakness.’
If he hadn’t consistently built up his resistance to Echo with [Divine Balance], the fight might’ve ended right there as he was debilitated enough to kill.
The waves bounced around within him, but his stabilizing spell suppressed it with practiced dexterity. The demon-kin in layer twenty that released the pulse wasn’t just a single one either, but a swarm of tiny fish with disproportionately massive conic mouths. If it weren’t for their lethality, he would’ve thought they were somewhat comical.
He tried to move to the twenty first but the Charybdis once more pulled him back, and the swarm of demon-kin were charging up another burst- he went with the flow, riding the Charybdis’ wave in a circular motion as he moved back to the nineteenth, out of range of the smaller swarm.
He prepared to lunge towards the Charybdis’ throat as he got closer to it when the T-Rex appeared again, this time slicing him directly down the middle in an attempt to split him vertically.
Once more, he removed all the flesh from the arc’s pathway and moved enough to only lose thirty percent of his mass, which was immediately reabsorbed as the arc left his body, but it threw off his rhythm, and he wasn’t able to properly strike at the Giant.
His Connection reached out, and an insulated tether of Void fought through what he now felt was Space mana pulling him into the Charybdis’ mouth, but the spell that let him teleport in turbulent waters was too new to fully combat the draw of the Giant.
Worse, the T-Rex still glowed with Wrath.
‘What the hell is this thing?’
Three more crescents minced him, none causing permanent damage as they were too slow to surprise him yet always catching him in compromising positions that prevented him from dodging them fully.
He took a small comfort in how the Wrath “Cancer” he’d given to the Charybdis glowed stronger now, the T-Rex unable to absorb it for some reason as the flesh around it twitched and pulsed ominously; still, he saw no way out of the Charybdis’ draw, and he saw the swarm of “Echoing” spirits slowly begin to push through the boundary and into his layer.
“Perumah, if you have anything, I really need it now.”
“Do not worry,” she said, and he felt exertion and pain through their bond, “I merely wait for an opportune moment.”
She was charging up something massive that would render her unconscious or severely hurt afterwards. A last resort, then.
“Aloran, you still there, any ideas?” he said, though he already started to grow ever larger- no need to make it easy on the Charybdis to eat him, even if his maximum size was nowhere near as large as its own.
“I can only do this once every month, but… if there’s any time to, it’s right now. Yes, my avatar and inquisitor, prepare for my descent.”
A grand existence reached down the tether between them and pulled. He felt that, normally, this would be the part where he was shielded in Aloran’s afterlife while Aloran used his body to carry out his divine will, but Dei could not truly be separated from himself. Instead, Aloran reached through Dei’s soul, imbuing him with power and gently requesting Dei allow him control.
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Dei acquiesced, watching as his silver body flashed into a vibrant gold with twisting streaks of blue, his pink and red eyes going completely white as faith.
Still, Dei felt the limitation and exactly why Aloran suspected he would lose contact very soon- the Spirit Realm was not directly linked with the Physical Realm. The signal between them was relayed and diluted, not as strong as it could be and on a far stricter timeframe.
Dei felt Aloran twist his body around, whipping his tail out towards the T-Rex and moving his hands in patterns at both Charybdis and the small echoing spirits.
The Tyrant Lizard tried to flee into its shadow but was a moment too late, and Dei saw its right leg and tail be struck, shriveling and charring.
Waves of blue and gold flew into the Charybdis’ mouth, doing shockingly little as all were drawn in and suppressed. He felt Aloran mentally grit his teeth as the third attack landed, completely flattening the comparatively pathetic swarm while reinforcing the spiritual wall to ensure no more of them appeared.
Aloran curved crescents around the sides instead, carving thick gouges out of it and slicing off many of the limbs around its mouth. Dei felt the pull weaken dramatically as the Charybdis reeled in pain.
‘The arms act as antennae?’
Aloran’s time was running out so, with the last of his power, he forced Dei to dive below, deflecting another sonar attack as he moved through the twentieth layer.
The twenty first held yet another ambush, this time in the form of two massive sharks swimming around what appeared to be a sentient black hole.
Aloran didn’t have enough energy to fight them off again, trying to push through to the next layer, but the vortex the sharks circled held absolute dominion over this section of reality.
Aloran tsk’d his tongue and said “Dei, you’re going to lose your connection with me, but what I do next is your best chance at survival. You will not last against both the Charybdis, Sharks, and Celestial Elemental.”
Without waiting for his response, Aloran swam as quickly as he could straight into swirling darkness. Dei had to fight down the fear he felt, as he knew Aloran would not simply kill him, no matter the crushing sensation insisting otherwise.
Dei’s soul resisted the pull of the magic, [Divine Balance] adjusting as quickly as it could to stave off the force. Aloran lined his body with Void mana, utilizing the new spell to reduce the force of the Celestial Elemental even further.
The squeezing grew worse and worse as Aloran became more distant, and Dei felt his God pushing himself to the brink to remain in control for moments longer.
Right before Aloran was forced away, Dei felt himself come to a crossroads of sorts in the Elemental’s body- one led to an internal world, the other to its stomach.
He felt it try to draw him into the internal world, sensed Aloran’s surprise at this action, then a swift redirection from his God sent him into its stomach.
“Time will slow, Disconnect!,” Aloran told him right before he felt a crushing weight slam into the connection between them.
Aloran was silenced, either out of range of Dei or suppressed by the Elemental.
In the Elemental’s “Stomach,” the pressure grew to an absolutely terrifying degree, and Dei felt his heart struggle to pump as he took damage to all organs, his memories becoming hazy as his healing was outpaced.
[Divine Balance] was gradually adjusting, but Aloran was correct, he needed to use Disconnect, or [Eldritch Self] now.
He also did not need most of his sensory organs. Nothing would reach him anyway, all drawn inwards to the singularity. Rather than remain as vulnerable flesh, Dei transformed himself into a sea-urchin like creature made completely of bone and metal, cutting himself off from everything but one person who was still within range, situated at the center of his body, the only place he let stay soft and squishy.
“Perumah,” he said, “We’re caught in time dilation, and I don’t know when it will end. You have the ability to go dormant, right? I do as well, we need to sleep.”
“I can break us free,” she insisted, but he could still hear the pain of holding whatever it was she held.
“There will be more fighting afterwards,” he insisted, “You can do your thing when we get out. You’re waiting for them all to congregate, aren’t you? All the demon-kin? You need the Charybdis and the T-Rex to make it to the sharks and elemental. It will be wasted in here.”
He felt her finally agree, the tension of her soul slowly relaxing.
“I… have not contributed much to this battle,” she said, “I am not a spirit, my body does not fare well in the Spiritual Realm, and the effect becomes worse with each layer we descend.”
“It’s okay,” he told her, “You’re ready to jump in if I ever get overwhelmed. Thank you, now please?”
His mental manifestation reached out to her own, a net of thorns in a vaguely humanoid shape, and they intertwined.
[Eldritch Self] activated, and he went below, this time to a far easier rest as his body became all but invincible as it bent laws to ensure he was unchanged by the experience, going as far as to slow time for all the denizens within him.
* * *
POV: The T-Rex demon-kin
It limped away from the battle, cycling the Wrath it’d gained through its body to drastically increase its healing, yet unable to push through the damage to it.
The divine strike was not something to be trifled with, especially against an entity like itself that had no Rights at all.
The mission failed. By its calculation, there was no reasonable way for it to cripple its target enough to drain its path slowly and fully. Now without a way to produce Wrath, it was significantly weakened. Its only boon now was the siphoned concepts it now stored within its body, but they were fading quickly.
If its original goal could not be accomplished, it would default to the secondary one- cause as much death and pain as possible. If it could not drain its designated target, it would have to pick a different soul, one powerful enough for it to wreak havoc.
The forces below would distract its target for a moment, so it turned its eyes to the battle above. Contrary to its initial calculations, the humans were not utterly overwhelmed.
Four of its direct subordinates were gone without a trace, likely erased by the Sun-Spawn it’d detected earlier. Briefly, it turned its eyes to such a target, hoping to see it unguarded yet deciding against it when it sensed a familiar depth of faith from the Flow Embodiment. This one, too, was an avatar, and attacking it would likely spell its own doom.
The other Shamans were exhausted, their souls pushed to the limits. Perfect. Only forty were left truly alive, the general population not even realizing the massacre that’d occurred as the echoes of the Shamans continued to fight, their souls imprisoned in the staffs they carried to fight on.
If it wanted to earn a powerful path, it would be one of the remaining forty- and two drew its eyes. Two that were thrown into more sacrificial situations over and over again, doomed to die by their own people yet somehow succeeding at prolonging their own demise.
It watched these two, and waited.
The battle moved quickly, and it kept its connection to the remaining eight divine demon-kin open, ready to take control instantly.
The chance presented itself.
It demanded two of its subordinates to begin the process of sacrificing themselves to erase eight Shamans that’d lined up perfectly. Just as it thought, the more powerful of the two ostracised Shamans opened his soul, burning through the last of his resources to deflect and repel the suicide attacks.
Rather than erase him entirely, it commanded them to direct their attacks- straight at the limb holding onto his staff. It was not such an easy thing to sever his arm, many forces fighting against separating a Shaman from their most prized tool, but it could be done.
The moment the bond was broken, the other six demon-kin lunged forward, tearing into the sacrificial Shaman and pulling back, away from the city and giving up the raid.
The other Shamans knew what was to come, true fear playing in both their eyes and that of the captured one. They killed two more of its subordinates before they were out of range, the even the captured one fighting with everything he had, attempting to burn up his entire soul but without the staff, his reaction speed was far below the commanders own.
With a loud crunch, the Shaman’s head was crushed between its jaws as it drank deeply of the ruined path.
Despite the Shaman being only level five hundred, the demon-kin felt satisfaction when it sensed how old this one was.
The stored EXP worked to patch the holes in the broken path, not even the System capable of fully suppressing its ascendance. Though it could not surpass the original’s level, it became more complete than it would’ve been if it’d chosen just any random soul to devour.
* * *
The horrified Shamans sensed Oura’s soul wink out, the staff unable to catch it before it passed on implying he was consumed.
For one, incalculable moment they allowed themselves to be stunned, to lock up and be afraid.
But there were still demon-kin to kill, and people to save. They did not know when the demon-kin that’d absorbed Oura would appear, but they could only continue the grim march forward, fighting for every second.
* * *
POV: Dei
Despite [Eldritch Self] slowing the spread, he could not reject his purpose. The grudge hit the limit of [Cycle of Sealing] and began to push the other mana types out, letting them tear at his flesh as he healed over and over again.
He quickly built up a resistance to his own affinities as [Divine Balance] remembered their damage, discovering new ways to accept hostile mana by running it through the scars of the Wrath Curse or forcibly consuming it to improve his flesh.
It was only a stopgap measure, though, and the moment the grudge took its first step out from [Cycle of Sealing], a thrum echoed through Dei.
This, [Divine Balance] struggled to imbue, as it was Dei’s own desire, his own intent to kill. Divine Balance was his immune system, and the grudge was a cancer. It could not recognize the threat, and soon ignored it.
[Cycle of Sealing] did its best, growing in power despite its maximum bounds remaining unchanged. For the first time since being reborn, the Skill was trained in a way that even the System could not quantify.
The burning core within him ran hot. Even without being imbued, flickers into the Plane of Wrath would occasionally find their way into his skin, becoming more blatant by the second.
It only took a single week before it was too much. [Divine Balance] ensured he was mostly immune to Celestial by this point, and [Eldritch Self] abruptly shut off without his intervention as though it sensed what was to come.
Perumah woke of blearily as she sensed him shift, then snapped to wakefulness.
“Dei!” she called to him, but he could hardly hear her through the ringing.
His grudge was choking his every thought, burning him.
He felt his button hover over the release of his Skill, to become a Manifestation form and consume all the stored mana, but he fought. With everything he was, he fought to keep it sealed.
Perumah mentally assessed everything, calmed herself, and interlocked herself with his control.
“You’re killing yourself,” she chided him, “You can’t stop this anymore. The demon-kin have already launched their final assault. It is time.”
She nudged him forward, the chainlock clicked, and his grudge tore free.
[Cycle of Sealing:
120/140,000 Weighted Fragments (Physical objects)
152,280/140,000 Rage]
[Cycle of Sealing: 152,407/140,000] -> [Cycle of Sealing: 120/140,000]
