A flock of Primordial Spawn met Felix on his way down. They might have once been Harrowings, but now they resembled nothing so much as flying mouths. Each was lined with fangs like feathers, their red flesh wrapped around the roots and trailing behind like crimson pennants. They swooped toward him, all of them at least twice Felix's size.

Sovereign of Flesh!

His body expanded, scales erupting across his skin in heavy plates of midnight armor. A featureless scaled helm slid over his face and his claws lengthened into true talons. The Spawn closed in, three at once, and Felix tore through them with a single swipe before tucking into a spinning kick that obliterated three more.

Empyrean Embrace!

He shot downward, the flock destroyed, and ethereal jaws snapped in his wake. Flesh curse and grizzled remains alike vanished in an instant.

Yes, Scion! Return What Once Was Ours!

The Beast gloried within him. A wash of joy rolled up from the abyss, filling Felix’s veins like adrenaline. Beneath his helm, his mouth stretched wide in a vicious grin.

Ours?

He tore through two more malformed maws in a spray of ichor.

Mine.

More attacked him, but it was the Whalemaw that had Felix's attention. It bellowed again, a wash of Dissonance wrapping around him like a strangling hand, but Felix heaved it aside.

Empyrean Embrace!

His Will surged outward, filtering across the connection he already had with the Primordial Spawn. He seized them, ethereal jaws snapping over the empty space around him. Yet this time, they were wrenched apart. His Will bucked against an immovable object before it was sundered entirely, his Skill denied.

The Whalemaw loosed a guttural cry, and a wash of gleeful hunger rolled across Felix's Spirit.

The Creature Holds Great Authority!

Watch Yourself, Scion!

Felix bared his teeth. His food had been snatched right out of his mouth, and he had no interest in putting up with that. He dropped down through another cloud of Primordial Spawn, tearing his way across the seething flesh. Empyrean Embrace wouldn't work, but he was glad it wasn't his only trick.

Sonata of Domination!

Felix wove a net of vicious metal hooks and thick threads of earth. With a hurling gesture, he tangled it around the flock trying to bar his way just as he broke through their ranks with a vicious downward heeldrive. As he fell past, he shaped a blast of air into them all and hauled sideways with a single hand. Rattling teeth and hissing screams sounded and silenced as they flew directly into the spinning arm of the Desolation.

The net, and the Spawn, were unmade.

No! Our Power!

It hurt him too, but there was plenty more to go around.

The Whalemaw spread out beneath him. Once a Void-dwelling Narhollow, it had been a vast entity shaped roughly like a whale, its back covered in rocky armor that often housed lesser voidbeasts as it traveled the deepest dark. The last time he’d seen it, the Whalemaw was still within those proportions, mighty as that might have been.

That had all changed.

It was vast beyond comprehension, its visage raw and bloody. Its leathery body had transformed into a mass of fibrous tendrils that wrapped across its miles-wide bulk, extending for an unknown distance. Thousands of mouths, all lined with teeth, opened in hungry anticipation as Felix dropped. They snapped at him as he fell, the Whalemaw rising up like the surface of a planet.

A Worthy Contender!

Let Us Meet Him, Titan To Titan!

The Beast reached out from the abyss, marshalling Felix’s core space all on its own. He panicked as a familiar pattern lit up between his Skills and a dire pressure built up against the roots of his Divine Tree. His Core Manifestation rumbled, rolling through him with a tumultuous gasp.

"No!" Felix rejected the Beast's control. His Will clashed against it, naked Intent against sharpened teeth and gleaming blue eyes. "I can't even make an Empyrean Embrace work on that thing. Get off!"

The Beast’s bright blue eyes narrowed, but it listened. It backed down.

Hooked tentacles shot upward out of the reddened flesh. With Adamant Discord, Felix blasted aside on a bolt of lightning, slipping around the leeching ropes as hooks that looked like teeth tore after him. His talons ripped apart the tendrils that grabbed at him, and he careened through Primordial Spawn like ichor-filled bowling pins, leaving nothing more than smears that were consumed by the mouths below.

He shot downward, but as he approached, he flared Adamant Discord once again and shot sideways, parallel to the Whalemaw's surface. Liquid purple eyes bubbled up all around him, racing after his passage as if hunting him. Felix burned, lightning arcing from his body as he sought out any weakness. He shaped Mana into bolts that speared into the ropey flesh but they were absorbed without effect, no matter the power he put behind them. The mouths ate his strikes entirely, and the eyes, once struck, merely reformed in another place.

How the hell do I kill this thing?

His Perception twinged and Felix twisted aside as teeth erupted from between mounds of scale and flesh. They rose like trees in a forest only serrated, forcing Felix to maneuver around them and rise higher. Thunder boomed as the Whalemaw snapped its many jaws, and the reverberations sent Felix reeling. His flight was interrupted, Adamant Discord fumbled from his grip as Dissonance tore across his senses. He fell—

Right into a wide, fuzzy surface.

"You don't touch him!" Pit cried. His tufted ears laid flat against his skull as moonbeams lit up the Whalemaw's face. Teeth fell inward, shielding the creature from the blast.

Felix shook his head, his concussion Status Condition clearing quickly. "Thanks bud.” He clambered into a crouch on Pit's back, balancing between the flexing muscles that controlled his massive wings. "Now help me tear this thing apart."

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Pit's only answer was a victorious screech.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Felix seized the bloody tendrils that came from the beast, as well as the teeth that speared upward at Pit's underbelly. The creature's authority bucked against his own. But with a roar, Felix tore them apart, scattering their bits from Pit's flight path. Yet they reformed in his wake.

Felix cursed. A Primordial Spawn fell upon them and died, electrocuted by Pit's Mantle before they could even touch them. He was running out of ideas. The forest of teeth still rose around them. Pit climbed higher but it mattered little. The teeth rolled, rising on hills of muscle that clenched and flexed, trying to chomp on the enormous Chimera with each resounding crash. Teeth shattered as they collided in their wake, flesh bleeding as its ropey tendrils only increased in number. Pit barrel rolled through a net of lashing strands, each lined with razor sharp, miniature fangs. A few managed to entangle Pit's legs, and Felix severed them, clearing their way. Yet with each passing moment, the Whalemaw’s Authority seemed to be growing stronger.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Tendrils split apart enough to loosen Pit’s limbs, but they healed in fractions of a second and were joined by hundreds of others.

Sovereign of—!

Pit howled in agony as a tendril tipped by a dozen barbed teeth punched upward, stabbing through his leading wing.

Felix tried to shred the tentacle, but this time it rebuffed him entirely. His Authority was rejected wholesale, and his Intent overpowered. More tendrils stabbed into Felix, ripping into his scales and through his arm. He gritted his teeth as they tensioned, yanking both of them sideways toward the Whalemaw as the surface split into a new, riveting mouth.

Do Not Let Its Jaws Close On You, Scion!

It’s Authority Is Too Great!

Felix didn't need the Beast's advice to know that—If they entered the Whalemaw’s mouth, Felix’s Authority would be consumed entirely.

He ripped out the tether in him and slashed through the one on the wing. "Fly up, Pit!”

Seek Out Its Center, Scion!

A Beast Must Have A Core.

Consume It!

The toothed tendrils of the Whalemaw swung over them and Pit flared Ouranic Dominion with all he had just to keep ahead of it. Over and under, they escaped by mere inches and only then, because Felix pushed back with every ounce of Adamant Discord he could muster, lightning flaring in all directions.

You tell me where that core is, because from here I can't see it!

Above, his people were being swarmed on the ship that had not gone nearly far enough away during his fight. Beef's chitin was dissolving even as he laid it down, barely enough to keep the Manaship from Desolation's obliteration.

Wherever that core is, it's buried too deep for me to get it. And if I'm avoiding every single mouth, I can't get close enough. You see that, Beast? Felix jabbed a finger as a piece of the Whalemaw rose up. A hill of ropey flesh that transformed, folding itself inward and becoming a mouth leading into a wet gullet. How am I going to avoid its Authority then?

The Beast had no answer.

Adamant Discord and Pit's Mantle of the Stormlord singing loudly within their core spaces as they shot just beyond the Whalemaw's reach. Felix gritted his teeth. The thing wasn't Divine—it was worse and far more unkillable.

"I don't have time to fight this fight," he said. "Back to the ship, Pit!"

They soared upward, trailed by Primordial Spawn that spewed from the Whalemaw's orifices like disgusting fighter jets. He pulled up his authority map, checking it as it jittered about in his view, the display glitching and breaking apart.

"Do we have a plan?" Pit asked over the wind.

"I do, but it’s an old one!” He leaned forward into Pit’s thick neck fur. “I just hope the Whalemaw doesn't remember this move."

They shot upward, Sonata of Domination slinging from his channels as Fiendstone replaced the dissolving chitin and jammed into the manorship. It ground against it, breaking a large chunk of the hull, but it sent them further away than they were before. Felix leaped from Pit's back as his friend landed on the deck and he seized the helm away from Elowen. The deer mage backed off, startled—Felix didn't bother to explain. He spunt he wheel just as he reshaped the Fiendstone upward into a leaning ramp.

He turned them directly toward the Desolation.

"What are you doing?" Elowen screamed. She seized the wheel, trying to pull it in another direction, but she didn't even budge it. Felix was too strong.

The Whalemaw bellowed directly beneath them, rising faster than any ship could manage.

Felix cursed. "Hold this course!"

Without another word he leapt to the front of the ship. The Desolation loomed before them, a blinding white that crawled into his vision as if it were trying to tear apart the light before it entered his eyes. Felix pulled up the map. It vibrated, the borders of it jerking around as it fluctuated; the Dark Passages gone wild.

He reached out his talons. Void Nexus!

Felix slashed down, and the Desolation opened up into a blinding starscape—just in time for them to plow right through it.

The rift burst, stars wheeling in a liquid cyclone that enveloped them completely. Felix reeled, a kaleidoscope of stars and brilliant light streaming across his vision, breaking into fractal patterns that fled to the edges of his Perception before gathering into arcane shapes. Pain scoured his significance—everyone’s, in fact—crushing their Aspects as the world tried to dissolve around them. White fled into the rift, the Desolation peeking through as pieces were torn apart.

Void Nexus is level 26!

His Skill shook, raging at his center as it fought to hold the rift open. Felix’s hands crushed something hard, but he felt no texture or weight. Only blinding white.

Void Nexus is level 30!

The world compressed into a point of incandescent light and colors beyond the normal spectrum bled across the sky. Felix was unmoored. He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. Voices that Felix couldn't understand whispered to him, pitched as if singing. They tore at his attention, scant as it was, tones terrified and pleading.

Who…?

Void Nexus is level 38!

The point of light swelled, collapsing the kaleidoscopic press of everything—the rift exploded open, tearing through them with the pressure of a mountain atop every square inch of their flesh. Screams squeezed out of breathless soldiers as they erupted free, prow to stern, and everyone fell. The ship skipped sideways, smoke pouring from its engines just ahead of an explosion of undifferentiated mana and a rogue spray of Desolation power.

Void Nexus is level 47!

It poured from the rift like a waterfall, slashing across the earth just behind their rudder—and it wasn’t even their top problem. They had emerged mere feet above the ground, and the deck heaved as Elowen hauled back on the wheel, pulling them high and away from burning hills that bubbled and spat with molten lava. Rocks gouged their hull but only for a moment before it disappeared entirely; the power of Desolation spread across the earth, splitting through hundreds of feet of soil and rock in an instant. A deep wound opened up and flooded with a gush of lava, gouting from across the fields into the abscess.

The world around them was on fire. The skies were black, but lit from beneath by a vibrant orange. Felix released the railing, now nothing more than scrap in his hands. Behind them a furious, dissonant bellow sounded from the rift. He spun back.

Ropey tendrils stretched through, teeth lashing as mouths tried to form this side of the rift, but the air itself rippled.

WARNING!

Territorial Instability!

The rift shuddered, its edges collapsing into sharpened fractals. Light bent, refracted as if through shattered glass and the Whalemaw’s tendrils were sliced through. Ichor sprayed, a crimson brighter than the lava below, as the lean flesh recoiled.

With a wrenching effort, Felix cut off his Skill.

The rift crushed into a single point, the pieces of the Whalemaw sucked back in like a garbage disposal. It, and the opening into the Dark Passage, was gone.

He fell back against the gunwale, breathing heavily, and feeling for the first time a dozen wounds that were slowly closing up across his chest, face, and forearms. "Everybody okay?"

He was answered by a tired round of groans. “Good.”

Felix pulled up his Authority map and let loose a final, relieved breath. They were just a few miles outside their destination. They’d made it.