Ichor of the Sovereigns

Muran held out his shield in front of him to obviate himself from bashing his skull into the rapidly approaching wall. Teeth chattering from the impact, he scarcely had time to recuperate when the chamber lurched again, coercing him into the air and then into the floor once again. Riasond wasn't faring any better; his crescent blade proved to be unwieldy against the smooth stone surfaces lining the chamber, providing no source of clinging onto. The Moon God was tossed vigorously across the room, grunting with each impact. Both Astrals, despite their jostled brains and the incredibly recent, exhausting battle, were endeavoring to make sense of the situation; Kinacha was silent, and there was no designation that this shaking was just another one of the Muesum's tribulations. It was possible that the structure was under attack, but what army could possibly be immensely colossal enough to have been assembled in such short notice and siege the Keeper so efficaciously? Whatever the outside threat was, it was keeping him too diligent for words, so diligent that he had neglected to apprise the Astrals of the nature of the assault.

"What the hell is-oohf-going on?" Riasond struck a concretely unforgiving patch of stone and grunted in replication. Muran had a sickening, clammy feeling as anon as his brother asked. He had the worst premonition that they were about to ascertain virtually instantaneously.
"I have the worst premonition that we're about to ascertain virtually instantaneousl-"

Virtually instantaneously, the entire chamber ceased shaking and the two Gods commenced to elevate in the air, gradually floating higher and higher. The pit feeling in Muran's stomach worsened considerably. His ocular perceivers widened in horror. "We're falling!" he cried. And with that, the entire chamber shattered in midair as a molten ray of pinkish light tore through the spherical cavity and exposed the two Gods to open air. Muran's nostrils flared as light bathed them both. Sun, he cerebrated. Energy, he commanded.

Expelling his puissance in a blast of golden light, Muran yelled and sent the chunks of the ruined chamber flying towards the ground below. As the superheated light kept him afloat (he was too exhausted to ask how, precisely, that worked) he willed himself to float over to Riasond, whom he had suspended as well. Both Gods rapidly blinked perpetually in order to adjust to the sudden, glaring effulgence and rush of brisk air. Once their ocular perceivers had become acclimated to the light, they expeditiously looked around to find the source of the disruption. Riasond spotted it first. His ocular perceivers widened as his pupils shrunk in disbelief. "What in Night's denomination is that...thing?"




Which was a very, very good question. Muran didn't have an answer for him.









Below them was conspicuously Kinacha, but what concerned them was the colossal, indescribable writhing biomass suspended in the air, currently assaulting the Museum with gangly, snaking appendages of fibrous flesh. The astronomical, pink freak of nature was comprised of what Muran could only conjecture was tentacles of flesh, or perhaps fungus, judging by the brobdingnagian flat cap reposing on top of the alien mass. Neither of the Gods could tell if it was a single being, or perhaps some extraterrestrial colony, or Myth kens whatever it was, but it was evidently the entity responsible for the commotion. The limbs flailed and swung at Kinacha and tentacles latched onto the building's holds as the Keeper was opening countless doors and windows, some of which Muran swore had not been there when he had last observed it from the outside. From the windows, a myriad of outlandish amalgamate objects, creatures or indited symbols being called to the Keeper's avail.
Several tentacled creatures composed of viscous ebony ink were slamming their beaks into the writhing limbs, tentacles or any portion of soft pink flesh that they could locate, gnawing off the gargantuan creature's hold on the Museum. The front doors of the building had enlarged to a size that was infeasibly astronomically immense under euclidian geometry, firing a prodigious cylindrical laser of pristine, concentrated humming green light directly at the creature. In replication, the tremendous alien creature had opened up an orifice located on the center of its body and fired a massive pink laser of its own additionally humming with energy. The two lasers were impeccably matched, with the meeting point equidistant from both combatants, sparking and humming with absurd amounts of puissance.
Other than the hums of puissance, the living symbols sometimes exploding and screaming their own words in order to inflict memetic cognitohazards on the assailant, the rushes of wind from an astronomical limb being swung through the empyrean, the crunching of bricks and substratum, and the sickening squelches of burning tissue, and deafening explosions caused by the verbalized energy blasts, the scene was devoid of dialogue. Neither being was making endeavor at conversation. Thus far there did not appear to be an advantage bestowed on each side; both the Museum and the infeasibly astronomically immense mass of flesh were at a stalemate as they pried chunks of each other away, the pieces of disembodied tentacles and structural debris raining onto the ground far below.


Both Astrals were speechless, mouths open but engendering no sound. Much homogeneous to the two beings they optically canvassed. Eventually Muran regained his ability to verbalize. "What in the fuck? WHAT? WHAT? Why isn't the Keeper saying anything? He didn't mention this AT ALL. Is he exerting an exorbitant amount of effort to be able to verbalize, or...." Riasond hushed him.

"Aurally perceive that?" He asked. "They're both making this humming sound."

"Affirmative, I ken," Muran responded, vexed. "Their lasers are engendering so much energy that-" again he was interrupted.

"No, that's them. They're verbalizing, but on some scarcely...other level. Higher than communication. Heedfully auricularly discern proximately, with your mind. Let it in, or something like that." Risaond ceased and consistently visually examined the two combatants in concentration.

Muran, marginally incredulous, commenced to concentrate on the humming. Gradually, he felt the sounds peregrinating to some place in his head, like a space in his brain he'd never used afore. The humming became a whine, the whine became a buzzing, the buzzing evanesced into nothing. Suddenly Muran could not aurally perceive anything at all, not even the explosions down below. Startled, he commenced to worry that he was auditorily impaired, until he descried the whispering. Straining his auditory perceivers (or, brain, whatever), the coerced the whispering to become louder and louder. Eventually he could make out two distinct voices, one of which was familiar; the disembodied voice of the Keeper. The other, however, sounded like thousands of beings verbalizing at once in his head, and not every being was verbalizing at the exact same time. The two voices rose to an audible level, until Muran could understand what they were verbalizing. They were locked in an altercation of some nature.

"-Until your little shelves and cases are spilling from your halls, puny Building."
""I have fried more immensely colossal brains than yours with oil and lamps."
"Substantial bluff. ASTRONOMICALLY IMMENSE buff from little Building God."
"Verbalizing of substantial, I cannot avail but feel that I am doing you a favor. So much...generousness. Such mass. I ought to charge you for trimming off a few tentacles."
"You verbalize of mazuma and value. Tell Krom; how many priceless artifacts is Krom eradicating? How much cognizance do you lose from fight with Krom?"
"Those very artifacts you verbalize of are availing me in battle. I'm sure I have a living mop somewhere that eradicates flesh to the physical contact. Can you feel it, scrubbing away at you?
"Krom feels ALL. Krom IS ALL. And so shall you."
"That last one didn't even make any-"

Kinacha was halted mid-retort by a massive appendage striking his roof, caving his upper levels in and sending entire corridors spiraling into the welkin. Krom (or at least what Muran postulated was the being called Krom) laughed heartily. Both Astrals were so immersed in the conversation that they could feel Kinacha's phrenic wince of pain. Once Krom ceased laughing, deafening silence followed. That is, until a gargantuan tome, authentically more sizably voluminous than the aperture in the top of the Museum (once again defying the laws of space and geometry) and discharged a massive roaring flame into Krom's mushroom-like cap, torching an immaculate aperture straight through the Flesh's cranial area. Krom cried in pain but did not break his laser from Kinacha's. Muran suddenly realized that should the two lasers cease being connected, the resulting dissonance would most likely kill one of the combatants. Kinacha and Krom were locked in a literal deathmatch; whoever yielded would be eradicated sempiternally.
"Firstly; never interrupt me."

The book burned away into ash and floated away with the wind.


"Secondly; I prevaricated about the mop. It was authentically a book. It's an ingloriousness Sir Bookington only has one good use afore he disintegrates."

Krom's yelling determinately ended. He was silent but determined to culminate Kinacha, opening up obnubilated winglike appendages to relinquish hordes of fleshy creatures into the air like spores, raining them down onto the Keeper.


"And thirdly; for such an astronomically immense brain, you sure are imbecilic."

Suddenly runes commenced appearing along the charred, blackened flesh, searing away more of Krom's essence. In replication Krom could only laugh, which lead to Kinacha's audible mystification.

"And for such a minuscule God, you verbalize far an exorbitant amount."
"I'd dissent. It disunites the savages from the civilized. You'd be astounded to discover just how many Gods don't relish a relaxing conversation. For instance, a savage like you."
"Insults and words; is that all you have, Little Building? Krom is disappointed. Krom is destroyer of lucidity and wrecker of jubilance, not decommissioner for latrines.
"Delicately comely. Check your privilege; I am the Keeper of Monstrosities, the Illimitable Tome; countless souls have entered me and none eluded. The potency harnessed within my shelves, uncontained, could obliterate your entire being in a fraction of a minute. Many a civilization has been effaced from recollection because I willed it; and because I will it, you will be effaced additionally."
Krom cerebrates not.

    Kinacha was unable to block the massive limb plunging directly through the lower calibers of the building, ripping asunder his substratum and scattering debris in every direction. The building creaked and shook, struggling to maintain the death-gaze of the twin lasers. The pink laser gradually crept more proximate and more proximate, pushing the green light away and inundating it. Meter by meter Krom's beam was reaching Kinacha's front door. The Sun God winced as he aurally perceived a loud, unceasing and high-pitched noise vibrating his very being and rattling inside of his skull. With incrementing horror it dawned on him that it was the Keeper screaming in agony for seconds on end. Muran had never expressed sympathy for the Museum, especially after it holding him hostage, but he couldn't avail but feel that Kinacha was a much more preferable alternative to Krom. Shaking off his phrenic spectatorship, he turned to Riasond.

"We have got to avail him."

"You must be non compos mentis as those freaks to optate to avail ether one of 'em." Riasond shook off his trance, but perpetuated shaking his head to show his dissent.

"The Keeper is running out of time. If we don't-..LOOK OUT!" Too tardy the Astral brothers were bombarded by a scorching blast of pink light emitted by a stray tentacle aimed at the two of them. Unable to maintain his concentration, Muran let go of the light keeping them afloat and they commenced to plummet through the air.

Riasond, flailing his arms and legs, gestured to the astronomically immense mushroom-ish cap dominating Krom's body, smoking from the remnants of Kinacha's flames. "We're gonna land right on top of that thing!"

Cerebrating rapidly, Muran took his shield out in front of him and held it facing the fleshy platform below, closed his ocular perceivers, and braced for impact.

The Astrals struck the top of Krom's head, sinking the shield a few meters into the fibrous fleshy ground; Muran prayed the thing had not descried two Gods now taking residence on its head.

Riasond was already up, pulling his brother along with him. "Alright. Let's go kick this overgrown testicle out of the firmament."





"Hate to break it to you, boys; your friend isn't going to be getting any avail from you." Legath was already right abaft them, sword unsheathed. He had been waiting for them atop Krom, possibly even tracking their locations while exiting the Museum and floating suspended in the air above the battle between the floating giants.
Nulmik grinned as he held a clawed middle finger to the insensate astalia's throat.[/i][/font]

None of the other Gods present dared to interrupt the silent altercation currently taking place between Aldis and Traxis for trepidation of penalization or worse. The two Royals, combatants, brothers to vie for the throne, now stood meters apart, facing each other. By Aldis's side were Uxol, Yaldrenth, Muran and Riasond. By Traxis stood just Legath and Nulmik, but one had to recollect that the entire platform that everyone present currently stood upon was a component of Krom. There was no designation of descent from the Fleshwrought, suggesting that whatever combat took place would have to be atop the uneven, fibrous platforms of flesh. The portal behind Aldis remained wide open as though expecting more reinforcements, but none came. A kindred portal had composed behind Traxis, but it floated idly. Traxis was most likely waiting afore he had to exert any more of his godly troops. The Dark Royal was the first to verbalize.

"You've been slow, brother. Veraciously, first Laniatus, then Aleister, then Umoya? Remotely what I'd call resistance from your minor god crusaders sent to avail them. And let's not forget the moiety-hearted endeavor on securing Magmia, hmm? Axial; authentically? You sent Axial? I'd laugh, but it's more of a dejecting hysterical than a haha comical. One after another you let the Elders who had strove to stay out of our squabbles be taken. If I didn't ken you better I'd verbalize you were counting on my victory; that you are counting on what transpires here today."

For a few seconds Aldis had no replication. Determinately, arms still crossed just like his brother's, he verbalized. "Verbalizing of events that will never transpire, why don't you elaborate on this little plan? Something I've descried over the years, little brother, is that you never tell anyone, not even your most staunch footstool Nulmik, the whole plan. Bits and pieces of it, so that every pawn kens where to move, what do to, when to die when you deem it obligatory. I have a sneaking suspicion that none of your adherents have the slightest conception what you orchestrate to do with the Elders. Come now, Krom. Surely a being as encompassing as you has pieced it together? Or any of you, genuinely."

Indeed, none of the Traxian Gods present raised their voices in remonstration. In authenticity none of them kenned the higher purport abaft their actions; only that Traxis willed it, and when Traxis demands something there is no querying it.


The Dark Royal in question responded for his minions. "Firstly, you must be as incoherent as Nulmik if you utilize words like "allegiant" in the same sentence as his designation." Nulmik shrugged in accedence. "Secondly, it's conspicuous what you are endeavoring to do. You're stalling for time, edging me on to reveal my little senpai plan, while you assemble reinforcements. I sure am terrified of your village imbeciles you call Inner Circlemen. What were their denominations? Balloonez? Nitro? If I cared I'd probably ken. But I'm straying from the topic at hand. So, to answer your question, no. You are not obligated to ken what I have in store, and I don't feel obligated to tell you."


Aldis laughed without mirth. "Except you're an egocentric drama queen, and in authenticity you're stalling by not telling us. In any other circumstance you'd be salivating all over your armor with the opportunity to reveal your little sideshow. So cut the horseshit and apprise your nescient cronies."


With every revilement, every crude cut of Aldis's tongue, the two Elites winced and expected Traxis to retaliate immediately. For him to stomach such petty verbalize was unthinkable; if Legath were to utter those same words against his Lord, he'd be gutted afore the syllables left his throat, possibly not even by Traxis's hand. One thing was ostensible: Traxis limpidly reverenced Aldis's potency if he abode such demeaning, nonessential banter.


Traxis grinned. "I suppose you ken me after all. Very well then," he leaned even farther into his idle, comfortable position. "You, dearest immensely colossal brother, already ken the story, but perhaps I should elaborate for the rest of those here?"

"Again with the stalling. Expectorate it out, or I'll punch it out."

The Dark Royal feigned mock fear with a patronizing countenance. "Spare me, mighty King. I implore of you." He turned around to face his minions. "First, I better bring everyone here, hmm?"

Aldis frowned.

Out of the portal hanging abaft the younger Royal emerged Echo, Zukra and Morbus, who took up stances around Aldis's group, now outnumbering them 6 to 4, not including the territorial advanage of battling on top of Krom. Suddenly Muran felt a little less certain about their chances against this crew. Zukra, looking exasperated and circumvented by several clamoring demons, silently tossed a metallic cube of some sort towards the mechanized Goddess of Technology, who smiled as it hovered above her right palm. Morbus, looking grotesque as always, coughed and wheezed as insects exited the mouth cavity of the floating mask.

Riasond turned towards the Aldian portal, expecting the Royal of Light to evoke Gods of his own, but none came. "Ooooh kay." He turned back to visually examine Muran. "Not relishing these odds."

"Sublime; the gang's here. Now Aldis, just bring your playmates over and we can-.... oh, affirmative. My mistake. This is all you've got." Traxis laughed. "Alright, friends, heedfully aurally perceive close and heedfully aurally perceive well; it's quite a concise explication, and I will not be reiterating myself:"




"The Nine Elders are the oldest living Gods in subsistence. They were engendered in order to quell the elevating revolts of the Ancients, primal beings that threatened to take hold of Myth perpetually. Conspicuously the Nine acquired victory, inundating the incumbent habitants of the continent and vetoing them to the Void, but that's not authentically paramount. What IS paramount is that their potency, when assembled, reached inconceivably high calibers, as well as incredibly volatile and obstinate. But not arduous enough to harness."


"Their facile denotes of procuring astonishing power frightened them. They worried that one of them would prove acquisitive. So the Nine concurred to always remain separate from their counterparts in order to mitigate the perils of being assembled.

Fire, Dihydrogen monoxide, Earth and Air. Each parted ways to evade Elemental Resonance.

Sun, Moon and Stars. Veraciously, their work was cut out for them; the Stars offed themselves out of imbecilic incoherence to refrain the ancients in the Void. Blah blah noble sacrifice, blah blah imprecated, very jejune and nugatory. So they remained separate to cease worrying about Astral Ascension. But the Sun and Moon always find a way to reunite, whether it is their intention or not.

And that brings us to Life and Death. Or does it? Because you and I ken full well, Brother, that there are more than two Elders to compose the Continuum."

Aldis imprecated.

Traxis couldn't avail but smile. "Life, Death, and their hapless sibling. Affirmative, in total there were TEN Elders; but you'll be hard pressed to find a history scroll that admits such a thing. For you visually perceive, the three Elders that composed the Continuum were the most volatile of all. Perpetually bickering, incessantly quarreling, ad infinitum and to be frank, ad nauseam. Essentially tempers rose so highly that one of the Perpetual Elders was slain. They were mortified. Imagine if the other Seven discovered that they had transgressed their promise and done the unspeakable."

Yaldrenth fidgeted.

"To obnubilate their malefaction they committed an act even worse; they threw the sphere of Time into Chaos. No longer would there be a Tenth Elder. The Continuum was broken. Or so they mentally conceived, verdant as they were."

Aldis uncrossed his arms. "So you orchestrate to revivify the God of Time by pulling the sphere back from Chaos?"

Traxis laughed. "Of course not. I just want his sphere."

"That is suicidal! The whole reason you're doing all this, assembling the Nine in one spot, jeopardizing your salubrity as well as that of the physical macrocosm, is for a mere power grab? I surmised you were better than this."

"How dejecting to be confuted, isn't it." Traxis raised his hands in exaltation. "That about sums this whole thing up, I'd verbally express. Let's get a move-on. Uxol, if you'd altruistically..." Traxis gestured with his hand.

Aldis snorted. "As if I'd be incoherent enough to bring you the sphere of Stars. I authoritatively mandated Uxol to transfer it over to Exotis, who will not be joining us today."

Traxis only smiled as Uxol, glowing with constellations, gradually floated over to the enemy.

For the first time since he arrived, Aldis looked surprised. "But I authoritatively mandated you to....... by the Realms. You orchestrated this all along, didn't you." He shook his head. "How long have you been with Traxis?"

The floating orb of light, now grey with deadened emotion, shrugged off its disguise and replied with a low vibrating cello string.

Traxis could not resist barking with cachinnation. "I'd taunt your incoherent imbecility and shock, but I'm getting impatient. The point is, when all the Elders of a certain amalgamation are together, or at least their spheres, the ambient power around them elevates considerably. They become unstable. They jeopardize cumulating against their will. You can all feel it, can't you? The atomizing of the air. The buzzing of the energy. No pun intended, Morbus. Only a cull few can control this ambience; harness it, utilize it," Traxis's ocular perceivers gleamed.




"And demonstrate it."
With a single snap of his left hand, Kinacha exploded in a globe of golden light.




Krom shook askew as his energy beam conclusively met no further resistance and bore straight through the cloud of rubble that was once the Museum. Wisps of smoke and golden light, as well as some bits of green energy, radiated outwards from the epicenter of the explosion. As Krom righted himself he deactivated his beam and became still, possibly to visually examine the plummeting of the remains of his foe. Not a soul could identify the countless artifacts that had been ravaged; the potencies relinquished from the ravagement of so many eccentric objects and entities, not to mention the mystical safeguards the Keeper had employed to keep them contained, aerially circumvented uncontrolled and feral, determinately liberate from the recesses of the building after so many eons. However, the one thing Muran could not spot as his ocular perceivers desperately probed through the falling debris hundreds of meters away was the body of Sapience Goddess.

The edges of Muran's vision went remotely yellow and blurry.

"It thought it could bamboozle a Royal?" Traxis shook his head. "I must admit Krom limpidly thought he was prospering, but anyone fixating could have optically discerned the ruse. It was simple genuinely. The energy being relinquished from the building in that beam was too thinly spread to...."

Muran could no longer auricularly discern him. He mentally conceived he felt Riasond's hand tapped his shoulder, but suddenly the Moon God commenced to struggle. Muran turned to face his brother but was startled to witness Riasond melding into the Sun God's body, conjoined by his shoulder and Riasond's arm. With an eccentric sound not unlike a gong (or it was possible that Uxol had made that noise), Riasond vanished and expeditiously faded into Muran's form. While mundanely being in that situation would be cause for alarm, all Muran could feel was a heat somewhere in his body, circulating through his chest and spreading to his arms until his fists felt as though they were on fire. If his vision was any better he would have been able to visually perceive that his hands were, in fact, covered with two miniature suns.

"....She was with.....she was with him...she had no conception..." Muran breathed gradually.


Traxis laughed. "That's it. Get mad. You can feel the energy as though it was alive; straining against you, imploring you to hit me right in the stomach." He turned and nodded to Uxol, who vanished into golden light. The light expeditiously gravitated towards Muran and circled him like a ring.

Muran looked up. "Astallia was with him."


Traxis mockingly held a hand to his auditory perceiver, turning his head to the side. "I'm trepidacious I cannot auricularly discern you."

"That's enough, Brother!" Aldis shouted, reaching for his sheathe. "This is madness and you ken it. Surely you aren't optically incapacitated by cupidity to the extent that you cannot previse what will come of this."


Muran reached out with his hand without turning to his side and, placing his palm on Aldis's armor, pushed the Royal back a foot. A moiety of the Gods currently present gasped.


Aldis stared incomprehensibly. "...You dare..?"


"Astallia was with him." Muran reiterated gradually, consistently visually examining Traxis unblinkingly and unwaveringly. He looked as though he was entranced by the noetic conception of strangling the Royal.


Traxis clapped three times. "Marvelous. Nulmik, why don't you avail the man demonstrate his-"




The shadowgod in question did not even get the opportunity to expound why that was a horrid conception and to please not make me fight him Lord Traxis I'll do anything when Muran teleported abaft him more expeditious than even the Royals could follow and kicked the Tendril of Apostasy directly in the back. The unexpected force sent the surprised God flying through the air and off of Krom, who did not even bother to reach out with an appendage to preserve him. Screaming obscenities, Nulmik plummeted to the ground far, far, far below, with no Kinacha to catch him.



Legath, Morbus, Echo, Zukra and Yaldrenth were starkly silent. Legath was silently praying to not be the next target. Morbus's mind was currently wandering, curious at how Nulmik's corpse would taste to the maggot when this whole fiasco was all over. Echo hugged her cube a little more tightly. Zukra scratched his back and optically canvassed Traxis for any designation of an order. Yaldrenth did the same with Aldis, shifting uncomfortably. The Royal of Light shook his head, but not at Yaldrenth's unspoken question.

"Astallia was with him."


The Dark Royal's next laugh was sincere; the regalement was much more audible now. Composing himself, he uncrossed his arms again. "Spectacular. Now come, Sun. Demonstrate what this Ascension designates for us a- OOFFFFFFffffffffff."



The sudden, coerced exhalation of air from Traxis was due to Muran planting a fist in his armored stomach. Stumbling over in pain and surprise, the 3 meter tall Royal clutched his waist and fell. Muran, circumvented by an optically incapacitating spherical aura resembling a sun, prehended the King of Despair's helmet and hoisted the Royal up by the head. He leaned in proximately.

"Astallia was with him."

Traxis was unable to follow the kineticism of Muran's second hand as it plunged directly into the Royal's face, sending him skidding dozens of meters across Krom's platform with a punch directly in Traxis's fucking face.

"What?" Traxis stood expeditiously, ostensibly impervious to the blows as was pristinely believed. But it was conspicuous that they had caught him off sentinel.

"ASTALLIA
WAS
WITH
HIM."

Traxis did not presage Muran to already be abaft him and thus did not have ample time to prepare for the Ascended Sun to prehend a Deity that was a full meter taller than him by the neck and constrict, nails swimming with images of constellations and phases of the Moon digging into Traxis's throat.


Exotis emerged from the portal. "Aldis, my Lord, Uxol has gone an-....." the floating ocular perceiver persistently optically canvassed Traxis, the Dark Royal, getting choked out by Muran. "Whut?"

Zukra grunted. "Whut?"

Echo and Morbus were still speechless.

Yaldrenth scratched the back of his helmet with his spear in mystification.

Legath needed incipient leggings.

If Krom had trousers, he would most likely have needed a transmutation as well.

Traxis hoisted a hand and delicately pryed the fingers carving into his armored neck piecemeal. "Adorable." With the back of his hand, he sent Muran sprawling from a single strike embued with golden energy. "Now that was a demonstration." Dusting himself off, the Royal straightened up and coughed. "But juvenile to even conceive that you are have surpassed a Royal that is so proximate to Chaos."

"I'm not so convinced," Aldis reached for his sheath, evoking a sizably voluminous, ornately carved ivory blade, "that you're very proximate at all. No, not at all. The Elementals are not present, and neither are Life and Death. All you have is the Ascended Sun; and that is not enough."

"Oh, is that so?" Traxis taunted afore shouting into the air. "Mak'Ruth!" He commenced. "Reaper! Echo! Let us commence!"

Hundreds of meters away, a patch of green was perturbed as a colossal grey slabbed prison rose from the circumventing forest, tearing apart the nearby trees. Countless iron chains displaying sundry states of rust hung and swung from every inch of the structure, swaying in the wind and clanging against one another. Some chains were so astronomically immense that they even rivaled Krom's appendages in size.

Atop the Chains of Perpetuity, the Four Elemental Elders; Magmia, Laniatus, Umoya and Aleister (albeit the latter had been shrunken considerably to a much more manageable size by some remotely spell) were bound and lay in a circle, connected by chalklike symbols. Floating glyphs and runic chains held the Four in place.


Swinging from one of the Chains, much to the disappointment of quite a few, was a very jubilant Nulmik, laughing hysterically while screaming incoherent obscenities at whomever was able to aurally perceive him.


In another section of forest, equidistant from Mak'ruth, rose a pitch-ebony platform holding only two faint figures; as far away as they were, it was still conspicuous who they were. Nid'Hi'Kul, the Crested Treant and Elder of Life, was desperately seeking placidity with Death himself, who swung unrelentingly with his curved scythe while both beings were trapped upon the obsidian pillar. Their puissance from being in close proximity was already coalescing into a visible aura.


In the third section, there was no God. The only feature was a massive metallic pillar teeming with robotic drones that scoured over every square meter, prepping it for the job it was about to accomplish.

"At the Lord's accommodation," Death whispered. Every God present could aurally perceive his voice despite his immensely colossal distance.


"At the Lord's accommodation," The Chains of Sempiternity rumbled.


"At the Lord's accommodation," Echo gestured at her cube. The enigmatic implement hovered in the air and flew to the vacant pillar.


"UXOL! NOW!" Traxis screamed. Muran's body shook as a beam exited his form, enervating him and leaving him debilitated as the energy output from Ascension was channelled hundreds of meters away into the cube placed atop the pillar. Muran fell insensate.



The Elementals cried out as they were coerced into a single, glowing being. The Resonation's potency was siphoned into Mak'ruth and sent out towards the metallic pillar-plus-cube combo in an arc of multicolored electricity, as well as towards the obsidian platform holding Life and Death.


Muran's body seized as the Cube absorbed his energy and sent it out towards Mak'ruth and the obsidian pillar of Life and Death, colliding with the brilliant beam of energy of Elemental Resonance and meeting in midair, the arcs of puissance sparking ferociously.

Life and Death, in their illimitable battle, and illimitable embrace, sent their aura out to collide with the red, blue, white and green beam of potency headed their away from the west as well as the grey, yellow and silver sparks.


The three epicenters of puissance encircled Krom. Their perimeters of volatile energy composed a gargantuan triangle spanning at least a square kilometer, perhaps more, as the monstrous beams of raw, unchecked surges reverberated on every side.

"Yaldrenth." Aldis was still consistently visually examining Traxis, his blade at the yare. "Engage the Chains of Perpetuity and Nulmik. Do what you must."


The suit of armor looked hesitant. "Surely you don't mean-"


"Do what you must." Aldis nodded gravely to him, as though expressing a secret nobody else kenned. "No matter the cost."


Filled with comprehension as well as apprehension, the Chivalrous saluted his King. "Sir, yes sir!"


"Exotis. Disrupt the flow of puissance between Muran and that pillar."


"Morbus and Echo will both be sentineling it, as well as any truculent replication from Uxol," the floating ocular perceiver admonished. "I will be unable to accomplish this."

"Not in about three and a moiety seconds, you won't."

"I'm not sure I follow your meani-"


"CHOO CHOO, MOTHERFUCKERS."

Out of the portal erupted an absolutely massive train peregrinating at well above the sound barrier. The brobdingnagian, shining and magic-infused locomotive vehicular God kenned as Borealis slammed directly inches to the right of Traxis, plowing into Legath and flattening him without a second to steel himself.

Atop the train (why they weren't riding in the train, Myth only kens) sat five familiar faces. Nyko, the child God of Play, leapt from Borealis atop a floating carpet styled like a giant playing card. Felix floated off with his winged sandals and rushed to Aldis's side, where he prepared several of his fortuitous d18's, whispered in Aldis's auditory perceiver and headed off to join Borealis as the divine monorail made course for Life and Death, with Legath indisposingly in tow. As for the third, fourth and fifth....

"FUNES!" Shouted one jester.

"DUNES!" Shouted another jester.

"ZUNES!" Shouted the last-but-not-least jester.

"AND TOGETHER WE ARE GONNA WRECK. YOUR. SHIT!" With an abundance of whooping and cachinnation, as wall as some hesitant questions to each other such as "wait I mentally conceived you were Lunes" and "No I'm not you fuckwad" or "Goddamnit this is what transpires when you don't emerge to rehearsals", they jumped from the train and landed atop Krom and struck not-quite-so-menacing poses or made uncomely balloon animal caricatures of Morbus and Echo.

Nyko stood by Exotis and the trio of dunderpates, rolling four cards through his fingertips afore leaping onto his carpet and heading for Borealis to avail Felix.


Aldis smiled. "So you all ken what to do?"
Traxis smiled. "So you all ken what to do?"


Yaldrenth leapt from Krom and plummeted towards Mak'ruth and the Tendril of Apostasy with a mighty yell. "Bring it on, ye fookheads!", he declared while hurtling towards the glaring Nulmik far below.

"THE HYPE-TRAIN HAS NO BRAKES!" Borealis screamed in the distance as it circled the obsidian pillar of Life and Death. Felix and Nyko was staring down Legath and Zukra atop the conveyance as the latter evoked hordes of demons from portals of Night to climb all over Borealis and circumvent the duo.

The three Jesters swung their arms around and made kung-fu noises, endeavoring to scare or at least confound (which they were doing quite well) their insectoid and mechanical adversaries, standing in a triangle around Exotis, who was preparing to personally engage Uxol obnubilated within Muran's body. Krom roared and evoked his tentacles to impede the Jesters and the Ocular perceiver. The appendages hung in the air, pointed at the four and waiting for affirmation. Echo adjusted her steel razors while Morbus screamed at the Jesters with the buzzing of a thousand diseased bugs.


Above them all, an upside down pit commenced to compose, spewing with reddish, hellish vortexes of agonized energy. Chaos.


"CHARGE!" Aldis and Traxis readied their blades and swung at each other, steel against steel. At that exact moment, every waiting God jumped into battle as well. The Jesters charged Echo and Morbus as Krom writhed with glee, Yaldrenth slammed down onto Mak'ruth, and Zukra and Legath commanded their armies to assault Borealis, Felix and Nyko.


The Obsidian Firmament screamed and churned above them all.

===========


Two Crowns. Seven Rings.
Nine Pawns for the Royal King.