Blood pounded in his head like a hammer against an anvil, and the darkness that enveloped his mind was the oppressive sort; Leon had no idea where he was or what he was doing. He could barely even remember what it was he’d been doing last. All he could see or feel was the darkness, and the blood madly pumping in his veins.

Despite this, he felt rather calm. Whatever had been going on before he’d come to this place had left him mentally and physically exhausted, and the darkness, however much it weighed upon his body and mind, was at least peaceful.

But such things could never last. At some indeterminate point, Leon took note of a strange red-orange light shining in that darkness, and of a few licks of black flame surrounding it, and suddenly he became aware of himself again.

He was laying down on his side, his hands tied behind his back, his head pounding with pain, his ears lightly ringing. He felt like he’d just been eaten alive and somehow passed intact through the digestive tract of whatever creature had done it. He could barely muster the energy to crack open his eyes, let alone make any noise or try to move.

His first instinct to try and solve this problem was to summon his power. With a little bit of lighting surging through his muscles, he was sure he would start to feel better.

But his power didn’t respond to his call. His limbs remained leaden, and his mind remained clouded by pain and fatigue.

It was a slow build-up, but the longer he stayed that way, the more panicked Leon became. His breathing rate slowly began to build with that panic, as did his heart rate. Finally, after calling upon every ounce of physical energy he could muster, Leon began to struggle against his bindings and tried to sit up.

He found that it was only his hands that were bound, and that the rest of his body was free, but as he began to force himself to sit up with every ounce of grit he possessed, his heart sank and a lance of fury raced through his mind as a familiar voice called out, “Whoa there, Leon, don’t go struggling too much! You’ll slip and fall before we’ve had a chance to talk!”

The voice was Jormun’s. The man’s smooth tones alone had Leon nearly chomping at the bit to rise and fight, but it was an almost entirely mental reaction, for his body was still as devoid of energy as it had been before the pirate spoke.

Leon slowly forced his eyes open until he could properly see his surroundings. His attempts to project his magic senses went about as well as his attempts to summon the rest of his power, so he was now entirely reliant on his more mundane senses.

When he fully opened his eyes, he found that he was lying in a rather simple circular chamber made entirely of black volcanic stone. The only entrance and exit that was immediately apparent was a staircase that he was in no position to see the end of, while more concerningly, only a couple of feet behind him was a huge circular pit in the stone floor, so deep that the bottom was lost in darkness.

As Leon was trying not to panic even more at finding himself perched on such a dangerous ledge, he felt hands on his shoulders, helping him to rise and steady himself, and as he turned back to look forward, he found himself nearly nose-to-nose with a smiling Jormun.

There were many things that Leon wanted to say, and few of them were particularly pleasant. At the very least, though, he wasn’t plagued with strange visions when his eyes landed upon Jormun anymore…

‘What in the hells was with that, anyway?’ Leon wondered as his mind cleared a little and he was able to reflect upon the battle he’d fought with the pirate. He had many questions, but chief among them was what in the hells had gotten into his head that made him think attacking the pirate as he’d done was a good idea. Sure, he’d been filled with power by the storm—which he could still vaguely hear raging outside, along with the occasional explosion, indicating that there was still some fighting going on—but those visions had been intoxicating.

What most concerned Leon was that his mental defenses had remained up since the fight had begun, and his body had been nearly always full of the lightning he’d inherited from the Thunderbird. As far as his understanding of such magics went, he should’ve been largely impervious to mental attacks, but when he looked back on the fight with Jormun, he couldn’t come to any conclusion other than his judgment had been somehow impaired.

“I’m sure you have many questions,” Jormun quietly stated as he rose to his feet after helping Leon to sit upright, “so, how about the two of us have a little chat? We don’t have all day, especially not with that demon of yours still fighting the angel I summoned, but I couldn’t just end things as they were after our fight. You’ve done too well these past few weeks, and I’ve… Well, I felt you deserved to know a few things. So, go ahead; if you have questions, ask away.”

Leon scowled as he took a few deep breaths and forced himself to remain calm. The knowledge that Xaphan was still out there and resisting provided some comfort, but it proved impossible to completely calm down given the situation he found himself in.

“You’ve already answered one…” Leon quietly stated, “but I suppose I’ve got a few more.”

“Shoot,” Jormun encouraged as he leaned against the bare stone wall of this small chamber.

“How long was I out?” Leon growled.

“About twenty minutes,” Jormun answered. “I didn’t strike to kill, and your natural resilience as a seventh-tier mage helped you survive our fight, but you still required some healing, which I was happy to provide. Your helmet, however, wasn’t so lucky…”

Leon’s scowl grew slightly deeper, and he checked himself over a thoroughly as his bound state could. As far as he could tell, his injuries had been healed, though, so that much at least, Jormun seemed to be telling the truth about. The only question he had about that, though was…

“Why?”

“As I said,” Jormun replied, “I couldn’t leave things as they were. I know it may seem strange to hear, Leon, especially after these past few weeks, but I feel some amount of kinship with you. Or maybe that’s too strong a word. I’ve grown fond of you, and I didn’t want to send you off to the Serpent just yet. Not without breaking a few words, first.”

“That just brings more questions…” Leon muttered.

“We don’t have unlimited time, but we have about as much as we need, I think,” Jormun replied.

“What comes next, then?” Leon asked. His power still wasn’t responding, and as a result, he couldn’t even check in with his soul realm. He tried to speak with Nestor, but all he heard back was silence. He guessed it was a result of enchantments within his bindings somehow disrupting his connection with his soul realm, which also meant that he couldn’t feel his connection with Maia, either.

No Nestor, no Maia, no Xaphan. For the first time in a long time, Leon was truly alone.

“Once we’re finished here, I’m going to jump down this pit,” Jormun matter-of-factly stated. “You’re going to come with me. You, with your blood, are the final key to me receiving all the power that has been denied me my entire life. That my Ancestors were denied for their entire lives. When I give us over to the Serpent, I honestly can’t say what’ll happen to you, but I shall be lifted high as a new god, with all the powers of my blood awakened…”

Leon glared at him, recalling that Jormun had claimed while they were in the temple that he had some Inherited Bloodline which his Ancestors had lost the ability to awaken, but Leon had taken that as just a way to screw with his head, to make Jormun seem more relatable and victim-like.

“Still on that story, are you?” Leon asked, his tone tired and resigned. “Gone through so many with me that you’re having trouble keeping them straight? Or have you just gone through so many that you’ve gone full circle and are back at the beginning?”

“I get why you might doubt my words,” Jormun responded, “but I actually haven’t lied to you as much as you might think. Sure, I claimed to be someone I wasn’t back in Kraterok, but even then, I essentially told you what I was doing, you just didn’t believe me. I’ve been quite honest with you.”

“Horse shit,” Leon spat as he flexed his hands against his bindings. He could feel his physical strength slowly returning, at least, even if his magic still remained outside of his reach.

The bindings around his wrists seemed to be made of some kind of rope. If Leon had to guess, he would say that they were what was preventing him from using his magic, but they weren’t rigid, and he felt like he had a good chance of working himself free if he kept at this long enough. He just had to keep Jormun talking, and he might have enough time to break free. He’d lost their fight; he could play the blame game to try and figure out why, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he lost. As his eyes drifted back toward the pit not too far behind him, Leon knew that he couldn’t afford to lose again.

“What happened to my sword?” he asked, ignoring the direction Jormun was trying to lead the conversation in.

For the first time, Leon saw Jormun make a strange expression, one of muted anger and frustration, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

“Oh? That thing?” Jormun asked. “I had no need of it, so I threw it into the lake.”

Leon’s scowl grew deeper, until he was practically baring his teeth at the pirate in a manner that he found quite similar to what his instincts had pushed him into doing earlier.

Jormun went quiet for a moment, and his eyes unfocused as if concentrating on something else. When he refocused on Leon, he said, “The Serpent is growing impatient, and the Bull is finally encroaching on the crater. So, I think instead of waiting for you to ask the questions I want you to, I think I’ll just talk for a while. You amenable to that?”

Leon only glared at the pirate in response.

“Good,” Jormun said, ignoring Leon’s look entirely. “Where should I begin? The easy answer to that, I suppose, would be the beginning, but I’m not sure I want to go that far back… Ah, fuck it. This is the last time we’ll get to talk, and probably the last time I’ll ever interact with another human being as one, myself, so what’s the harm in getting a little long winded?”

Leon continued to glare at Jormun, but if the man was going to talk himself to death, then Leon wasn’t going to get in his way. He just continued to flex his wrists and work at his bindings. They didn’t feel like they were getting any looser, but he wasn’t going to give up.

Jormun was silent for a long moment, and only started to speak when the chamber lightly shook in time with a huge explosion that Leon heard from outside—he guessed that Xaphan and the angel weren’t even close to being done with their battle, yet.

“I was only a boy when the Bull came to these islands,” Jormun began. “My father was the Jarl of this island, before it was rendered just a collection of shattered rocks sticking out of the sea. He was respected. Powerful. When the Bull came, he was the one who rallied my people to fight back, despite being located the furthest away from the Bull Kingdom. He fought so hard that the Penitent Paladin destroyed three of our eight islands.”

Despite the subject he was talking about, Leon couldn’t detect even a shred of emotion within Jormun’s voice, which struck him as a bit odd. He knew he couldn’t speak about his father without getting at least a little emotional, but he supposed Jormun had more than half a century to get over it.

However, that lack of emotion soon gave way for rising passion as Jormun continued, his eyes growing wider with excitement as he narrated his life story.

“I saw my father cut down before my eyes before I was ten years old! And then, not long after, I saw my home and everyone I ever knew incinerated by the rapid eruption of this island! And don’t think I was spared, Leon, oh no! I was not spared that devastation! I was scorched from within and without as I breathed in the boiling ash that swept over my childhood home!

“But even though that was the end for everyone else, it was not the end for me. In my last moments, I refused to accept my death, and I screamed. This was only the impotent rage of a child, but just before I died, I heard the voice of the Serpent whispering to me. It told me of its power, and of the power that dwelled within me. If offered to save me, if only I could save it from its own predicament.

“Without hesitation, I agreed, and I was pulled beneath the waves as the ocean claimed this island for its own. I remember the water rushing into my lungs, my eyes closing, and the life leaving my body. But then, I awoke on the shores of Aeterna, on the sandy beaches of the Bay of the Drowned. All around me were the corpses of my people, having been swept away from these islands by the ocean currents and carried all the way to the mainland. As far as I could tell, they had been warded against rot and carrion, and as I searched through those endless piles for those I knew, I heard the Serpent again.

“It spoke of everything I could be, and the price that I’d have to pay to become what I needed to be.”

Leon continued trying to free himself, but he found himself getting a little distracted as he listened to Jormun’s story. He did his best to distance himself from the man’s words, but he couldn’t help but relate a little to what he went through. Jormun was, of course, a proven liar and manipulator, and Leon tried to keep that in mind, but he also couldn’t help but believe Jormun’s story. At this point, there wasn’t much point to lying… unless the pirate just liked lying and was only messing with Leon’s head.

When that thought occurred, Leon redoubled his efforts to free his hands, but the bindings weren’t loosening at all, and the panic he’d been suppressing was slowly growing more and more powerful and urgent.

Jormun, if he noticed this at all, ignored it in favor of continuing his story. “For the next thirty years, I slowly grew in power, guided by the voice of the Serpent. It taught me everything I needed to know, and showed me the path I would need to walk. I threw away everything that I didn’t need—love, friendship, desire for wealth, none of that mattered anymore. There was only me, my journey, and those who could aid me in my quest.

“It was only when I turned forty-six that I truly began, however. By that time, the knowledge I had gained from the Serpent had made me a rather notorious pirate, and I had attracted a fine crew. Most of these people I’d chosen to sail with me not because they were strong, but because they were naïve enough to believe me when I told them I could make them the Lords of this plane. They followed me because I spoke for the Serpent, and they believed that the Serpent would reward them for their service.

Jormun paused, ignoring Leon’s look of muted disgust. Leon wasn’t too fond of people, but even he was extremely put off by how Jormun was describing those people who had just died for him.

“I suppose it’s for the best that they didn’t live to see me rise,” Jormun whispered with a faint smile on his face. “Though, I did prime them to expect a Serpent to rise from this place. If I succeeded, they would’ve believed me to be that Serpent. It would’ve been quite entertaining to witness them ever realize the truth, I suppose, but this way is definitely cleaner. My crew is all dead, so there’s no need for me to worry about them.

“Anyway. I believe I told you of that vampire who spoke to me, yes?”

Leon slowly nodded, not really wanting to engage with Jormun, but wanting him to continue, anyway. Lie or not, he had to admit that he was fascinated with what Jormun was saying.

“When I completed the raid that they’d hired me for, that vampire and the rest of his disgusting ilk gave me a long list of those on this plane who bore some kind of power within their blood. These people were the key to my plans. For some reason, the seals that I needed to undo keeping the Serpent within its prison only respond to the blood of those descended from Ascended or Divine Beasts. With that list of people, I got to work. I hunted them all down and brought them to where the seals were located. I sacrificed them to the Serpent, using their blood to break the fetters that bound it. And when I sacrificed Octavius, the last of these fetters was broken.”

Leon couldn’t but ask, “I thought you were going to be the Serpent? Why speak of the Serpent you follow and then say that you, yourself, are going to be the Serpent? What, are you planning on usurping it?”

Jormun smiled and shook his head. “No, not at all. The Serpent below wishes to be free, and in return, it will help me to awaken the power in my own blood. What kind of creature do you think I’m directly descended from?”

Leon immediately answered, “A Great Horned Serpent.”

“Right in one,” Jormun quietly affirmed as a mad smile slowly spread across his face. “I don’t know if the thing below is really a serpent or not, and honestly, I don’t really care. It presents itself as such, so I call it the Serpent. It won’t stick around once its free; this place is far too weak for it to bother with. Instead, it will leave, and I shall rise as the Serpent that I told my people of. And once I’ve had my fill of everything I’ve denied myself, once my power has grown far beyond that of this plane, I will move on to others. Only once I’ve consumed all the power in this universe will I rest.”

For such a bold and utterly mad statement, Jormun spoke calmly and with a serenity that struck Leon as almost more unsettling than if he were dramatically pontificating to Leon what his grand plans were. If anything, it made Leon think that Jormun was at least marginally more capable of achieving that goal.

“You know, Leon,” Jormun said, “I never expected to run into someone from the Bull Kingdom that I could identify even a little bit with. But here we are. You, with your power, dying to awaken the dormant power within me. I expected so much less from the Bull Kingdom—some older, more experienced Paladin, maybe even Penitent himself coming to these Islands to finish what he did so many years ago. But instead, they sent me… you, and I’m so grateful for it.”

Jormun crouched down next to Leon, laid a hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye. The chamber shook with another massive explosion from outside, but Jormun didn’t even blink.

“I apologize for rambling. I hope you don’t think less of me for needing all of this; I have to admit that standing upon the precipice of my destiny has me feeling more than a little nervous, and having someone to talk to that I don’t have to lie to is surprisingly liberating… I think I’m ready, now. What do you say, Leon? Shall we get on with this? I think this plane has waited for its new god long enough…”

Leon’s eyes widened as Jormun began to push him backward. He abandoned all caution and put all of his strength into trying to free himself. Jormun only quietly chuckled as Leon failed to get his hands free of the anti-magic bindings.

“Those I looted from the Sunlit Empire,” the pirate said, pausing only long enough to speak those words. “I’m afraid they’re unbreakable unless you’ve achieved Apotheosis. You’ll die with your hands tied behind your back. Such is the way of things, I’m afraid.”

And then Jormun pushed Leon into the pit.

Leon felt the sudden and terrifying sense of weightlessness and he toppled backward. He was descended from the Thunderbird and the Great Black Dragon, two beings of the sky, so a sudden and uncontrollable fall was one of the most terrifying things he’d ever felt. He was so consumed by that terror that he barely even registered Jormun falling with him, or the pirate’s manic smile. His terror so consumed his mind that when he lost track of time and barely noticed when he scraped against the sides of the shaft.

After falling for several miles, he and Jormun hit a teleportation portal, and everything went dark once more.