CHAPTER 172: CHAPTER 171: INHERITANCE OF THE PALE DREAM

Moments earlier...

Lumberling’s eyes met Skitz’s.

No words passed between them.

They knew each other well enough to read each other’s thoughts without a word.

Just one nod.

That was all it took.

Skitz gave it now. Barely perceptible. A twitch of the chin, followed by his left claw tapping twice against his thigh, the signal.

Lumberling shifted slightly, loosening his stance, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword just beneath his cloak.

Then, the Serpent God spoke.

"I am," she whispered, every word dripping with dark reverence. "And you, beloved child... you are my echo, blessed, bound, and born of me. A beautiful fracture of my eternal will."

Her eyes glowed, slit-pupils expanding with satisfaction.

She extended her hand toward Skitz.

"Come."

Skitz moved forward slowly, reverently, every step deliberate. His right hand lifted toward her open palm, trembling, not with fear, but restraint.

Behind that submission, his mind was a storm.

He took another step, pulse pounding. Every instinct screamed at him to recoil, but another voice, the one he’d buried long ago, whispered obedience. He silenced it with a breath.

As their hands nearly met, Skitz’s claws flexed once.

A dagger shimmered into being, summoned in a blink.

With a flash of silver, he lunged.

The blade darted toward the goddess’s heart.

But she was old, older than memory, and far too fast.

She twisted just enough. The dagger sank deep into her side, just below the ribs, missing the heart but biting cruelly into flesh.

Her shriek echoed like grinding stone.

"You dare betray me?" she thundered, but her voice faltered, just for a moment. Not in pain, gods did not feel pain, but in disbelief.

"I’ll tear my blessings from your flesh. Every gift, every echo of me, you will return them all."

Her claws clamped down on Skitz’s arms.

Power surged through her grip, flowing like acid through his veins.

Skitz screamed in agony.

It was as if his soul was being pulled apart, his essence unraveling thread by thread. Memories burned. Will faltered. Darkness yawned before him.

’Ground yourself,’ a voice echoed inside, Lumberling’s.

’You trained for this. Meditate. Endure. Just for a moment.’

Skitz closed his eyes. He found the center, the breath, the rhythm of old chants whispered in sleepless nights. The agony didn’t stop, but it slowed.

Then it halted.

Because something else pierced her.

A shadow surged behind her.

Lumberling’s sword erupted through her back, driving out through her chest.

His eyes were cold.

"You invite my wrath..." she rasped, blood, spilling from her lips. "Even if this shell dies, I’ll reach across the veil and rip your soul from its resting place."

Lumberling didn’t flinch.

Instead, he gritted his teeth, and drove the sword deeper, until its hilt pressed against her back.

"You won’t be crawling out of this one," he growled.

She spasmed once.

Then crumbled, like ash struck by wind.

Skitz collapsed to his knees, gasping, clutching the emptiness where her grip had been. His arms trembled, essence flickering weakly within him.

Lumberling stepped beside him, offering a hand.

Skitz looked up, exhausted... but smiling.

"Didn’t miss the signal, did you?"

Lumberling chuckled.

"You were late by a heartbeat."

The air was thick with silence, broken only by the crackle of fading energy... until a voice, faint and venomous, slithered through the void.

"I will kill you..."

It echoed not through sound, but through thought, low, bitter, and laced with hatred.

Lumberling narrowed his eyes, his aura beginning to hum.

"Really?" he muttered.

Then, with a breathless stillness, Essence Devour surged to life.

Dark violet tendrils unfurled from his body, writhing hungrily, reaching toward the dissipating remnants that clung to the fallen Lizardman’s corpse. A subtle glow, gold and violet, flickered as something ancient and powerful was wrenched from the dying champion.

As the essence flowed, his sight fractured into a thousand scenes, mountains crumbling, oceans boiling, serpents the size of continents writhing in the void, until he could no longer tell if they were memories, prophecies, or hallucinations.

"What have you done?"

The voice, once regal and terrifying, now trembled.

"Impossible. You don’t have the right!"

Her voice shook, disbelief bleeding through fading grandeur.

She felt it. The blessing she had bestowed. A shard of her own divinity. Being pulled away.

Her spark, her claim was unraveling.

"You really shouldn’t leave your blessings lying around," Lumberling said coldly. "Not when I’m hungry."

He activated his other skill, Essence Weave.

A pulse of stolen energy split between them. Half of the essence flowed into Skitz’s battered form, mending his wounds and reigniting his breath.

Skitz’s knees buckled as the essence flooded into him. His eyes went wide, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. A strangled hiss tore from his throat.

"It’s, gkh.," he rasped, clutching his chest as if it were the only thing anchoring him.

The rush left his limbs trembling, but the wild gleam in his eyes hadn’t dimmed. Even bleeding, even half-crumpled, he forced himself upright, swaying but still scanning for an opening.

Normally, this would have returned to her. A champion’s death meant the blessing reverted to its source, or was reclaimed with wrath.

But not this time.

She let out a scream of pure, primal rage.

"You’ve ensured eternity will remember your name... as the one I erased."

Lumberling smirked, savoring the sensation as her grip weakened.

"Thanks for the inheritance, Grandma."

Skitz’s mouth twitched. "You’re insane." But he didn’t sound entirely disapproving.

The echo of her presence twisted violently, spiraling into a vortex of vanishing light. She watched, helpless, as the last threads of her power were devoured before her mind’s eye.

Then... silence.

No more voice. No more presence.

Just the flicker of fading ichor on the ground.

They’d done it, they’d just made an enemy they had no hope of facing. Not yet. But then...

(You have devoured the Lizardman High Priest’s essence, 850 essence absorbed. Absorbing a portion of the Lizardman High Priest’s memories and experiences.)

(You have gained the element: Chaos Lv.0 (1/1000))

(You have gained a portion of Naxxiriss’ Blessing: Blessing of the Pale Dream - You become resistant to illusion and fear. Your own aura causes low-level terror in the weak-minded.)

Lumberling staggered slightly, breath catching as a violent pulse echoed through his core.

His vision dimmed for a heartbeat, then flared open. The world sharpened, lines and shadows too crisp, too real. Every heartbeat of the jungle, every tremor in the earth, every flicker of movement, it all sang to him now, clear and discordant.

A freezing pressure coiled in his chest, then burst outward.

His aura rippled.

It wasn’t rage, or hunger, or fear, it was wrongness. A crawling, ancient dread that seeped into the world around him like ink through parchment.

Something other stirred in Lumberling’s soul now. A seed of Chaos, cold, dreaming, and vast.

Then came the weight of her blessing. The Pale Dream.

A whisper touched the edge of his mind, not hers, but something deeper. More primal. The veil between thought and illusion thinned. What once inspired awe now seemed flimsy, brittle. Fear rolled off him in waves, subtle but potent, and the shadows near him seemed to breathe.

He exhaled.

A violet mist curled from his skin.

His hands flexed, and the ground beneath him shimmered faintly, as if rejecting or recognizing him.

There was no going back now. He had stolen from a so-called goddess... if she was one at all.