The mountain loomed heavy over him, and the air was cold and freezing with tension. He knew that if he wanted to live his human life without troubles, he would have to cut off all ties to this bastardly organization, but doing so wouldn’t be easy. Back when he had signed the contract to become “Antenora”, he hadn’t understood Lutum Common, or Pterican, too well, so he didn’t exactly know what he was signing, meaning it was a couple of dozens of years later that he realized just what he’d signed. But he didn’t mind it at the time. What reason did he have to leave? Apparently, now he did have one.

He knew that the battle ahead would be a tough one, perhaps the toughest he’d ever experienced, and doing so in this human shell would be like trying to kamikaze the moon. So, somewhat embarrassed, he found himself an isolated spot in the forest of Nihil Usquam and prepared the spell circles. He didn’t remember the formula perfectly, but he was knowledgeable enough to be able to replicate it well enough. And after a few quick motions, the spell circle hung in the air, not really doing much of anything. Except, it was.

Something felt very wrong. There was a lump in his throat, except he didn’t have a throat. It felt like he had swallowed a barrel of snakes, and one of them was trying to slither its way back up, and he had no way of keeping it down. Buckling over, Adam found himself on the ground, coughing and dry-heaving. It felt as if he was about to puke, and his body suddenly felt so empty. Had he leaned over and held his mouth open like this just a few hours ago, a mass of green slugs would have fallen out, but now, there was nothing, and his mouth felt strangely empty. And there it came. The lump in his throat became the lump in his mouth, and with a disgusting “Slgghh”, the lump slowly fell out of his mouth and onto the grassy ground.

He saw a slug. And, at the same time, he saw a perplexed young child. He was looking at himself twice, through two pairs of eyes. He was the observed, and he was the observer.

But just as he was about to question which “him” was the true him, the boy buckled over even further, collapsing into an unmoving bundle of limbs and hair, and the connection cut off. There was only one him. And he was a slug. That wasn’t for long, however, as his body soon grew larger, until it was easily triple the size of the young body before him. The upper part started taking the slick, dull form of a man, and the lower parts started sprouting tentacles. And, after about a minute or so, he was back to his former glory, standing at 9 meters tall, with a writing mass of tentacles below and the vaguely humanoid body above. The small body was just a speck now, shaded by the trees. Adam reached down and picked the little thing up. It barely fit in his palm. With his other hand, he formed the Magick circle for “Ingest”, and the body sank into his hand, leaving behind not a single trace of Adam B. Windsley ever existing.

Antenora turned to the mountain and started slithering his body over to it. Meanwhile, his former party-members, the Randomized Bunch, were pretty much freaking out. The only one who wasn’t frozen in place and/or mumbling vague prayers to The Five Gods, which really wasn’t that strange, considering that a creature generally known as either a work of pure fiction or as close to a divine creature as a beast can possibly come, that could destroy entire countries on a whim, thinking less than little of human life, without any moral compass or human emotion, capable only of destruction. Tales of the evil gods were consistent in their ways of portraying these unthinkable monsters as things to only be worshipped, perversions of the original concepts of power and logic, with intellect and might beyond what any human could ever come to possess.

And they had just witnessed such a creature rising its head from within the forest. Only one of the five humans present could say exactly which of the Five Evil Gods that creature was, but all of them knew, perhaps instinctively, that this creature must be one of them, and if not, it was at least on their level. The mere sight of that thing had set their teeth on edge. Like a mouse in front of a housecat, no, a lion, they were suddenly extremely aware of their inherent insignificance. A human could never reach that level. They could try, sure, but even getting close to that thing would surely end them. If it so much as looked at them, if it let it’s indifferent, apathetic eyes so much as graze over their measly little bodies, their hearts would stop.

Adam slowly let the small, child-sized clothes in his hand flutter to the ground. But, midway through, he changed his mind, and before they hit the ground, his hand swept down and plucked his characteristic black cowl from the air using two clawed fingers. One of his innumerable tentacles, this one being unusually thin, quickly shot up and grabbed a hold of the cowl, before retreating into the large mass of writing appendaged that made up his lower half. There. Now he wouldn’t be naked when/if he ever returned to civilization. Sure, he was planning on going to Pteria after his ex-communication was made a fact, but whether he would actually try to join humanity again was still in question.

Nevertheless, that was a question for tomorrow. Right now, he had to prepare himself for the upcoming battle. Diabolus wouldn’t let him leave without a fight. All those cultists had filled him up, to be sure, but it was still nowhere close to how much he usually had. He would have to fight in some unorthodox manners, but… as long as he won, he was a free man. Slug. Thing.

This battle would not be won by sheer size and a rain of spells.

Adam turned to Nihil Est. Time to face the music. Now, Adam was not fast. Sure, if he used Float he might be able to go at a terrifying speed of 7 km/h, but like this, he was by far slower than any actual human walking. He would probably not admit it to himself, but that light sense of freedom he had gained from Humanification had spoiled him, and this sudden slowness felt jarring, even though he’d been used to going at these speeds for 600 years now. He couldn’t help but feel a little pout surface on his face. Not like anybody would recognize it, anyways.

Tiftos did. Tiftos totally recognized that little pout. But… that couldn’t be, could it?... Tiftos knew a monster when he saw it, by the Czar, he had practically grown up on the battlefield, but even then… Adam hadn’t been a monster. Sure, that letter had called him by the same name that the horrific, blood-freezing beast over there went by, but that must surely have been just a little nickname that that weird girl used. Then again, logically speaking, there had been rumours about this place being a secret hiding-place for cultists, and they had met Adam here, and they had tracked him coming all the way back here, and-, let’s stop there. Adam was human. If Adam was “Antenora, the Evil God of Disgust and Despair”, they would have noticed, wouldn’t they? Evil Gods couldn’t just pretend to be humans and blend into human civilization, and, plus-...

If Adam was an evil god, how could he possibly have initiated a mental link?...

“G-, guys? We should, uh, should we run?...” Mirim said with a shaking voice, bringing Tiftos back from his ponderings.

“Huh, I, uh…” Tiftos tried to say something in answer, but his thoughts suddenly felt so disorganized. He met Mirim’s gaze. She looked scared. Very scared. In her eyes, that kind of childish fear of monsters under the bed reigned, that fear of the known unknown. Her eyes shivered, sweat was beading on her forehead, and a wry, unwilling smile was plastered on her face. The rest of the party wasn’t faring much better. Ramona was stale as a board, and although she tried to look somewhat casual about what she had just witnessed, the fact that her lips were pressed into a thin, white line betrayed her intentions. Kratos, who wasn’t really affected much by fear in any other situation, had gone off to chop down trees, for, y’know, very good reasons. Not because he just had to get his emotions out or anything, nope. Had to get some firewood, right? Master Pellons had started laughing sometime between seeing the monster and the monster starting to slowly walk away, and he hadn’t stopped. Not once. Tiftos was a bit afraid he might choke or something, but he’d be alright, somehow. Probably.

“N-, no, we, uhh… Adam might still be in there somewhere, r-, right? So-, sso, we need to find him, right? Right?” Tiftos argued, his hands flailing about erratically. But Tiftos himself was alright, right? Right. Sure, he was still shivering, and he kinda felt like he’d had a few heart palpitations back there, but he was fine now. Right. Right right.

“I-, I, sure, I understand that Adam is pr- probably back in there and all, and you are friend, sure, but-, that… that creature is not something we can even APPROACH!” Mirim shouted, throwing her hands in the air. But, as soon as the words had left her lips, she clasped her hands over her mouth and nervously turned around to look at the beast who was still trudging towards Nihil Est. It didn’t seem like it had heard them.

“Even… even so, I…” Tiftos turned and gazed at the creature, and a little thought reared its head within his head. A bad, wicked little thought that no apprentice priest should even consider acting upon, and yet, there it was, and it whispered such sweet nothings into his ear, sweet nothings he simply couldn’t ignore.

“That-, that beast?” Tiftos turned back to Mirim, “Its name, is… Antenora. It’s one of the Five Evil Gods, and… and I’ve heard, that (don’t say it don’t say it)... that it doesn’t attack people? Like, uh, unless they attack first?...”

Mirim looked at him doubtfully, her brows furrowed and her gaze unwavering. She wanted to refute him. ‘How could a beast-like THAT possibly be peaceful??’ but, priests, even priests in training, were just about as knowledgeable on the Five Gods and the Five Evil Gods as a person could become, so… if anybody here knew anything about it, it would be him. Or that Pellons guy, but he was still unreachable, although his boisterous laughing had, thankfully, turned into soft giggling, which was still eerie but not as bad as the earlier stuff. Mirim looked away, realizing that, at this moment, she held the fate of this party in her hands. Nobody else could make this decision for her.

“...Okay. Sure. We will, but-, let’s at least wait for that creature - Antenora, was it? Whatever, until that-, that THING, has mucked off to wherever it’s heading, we’re not taking another STEP into this Gods damned forest, you hear me?!” she said, crossing her arms, tiny little tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Tiftos nodded fiercely. He could do with that, he could wait. Right now, he couldn’t sense much emotion or anything in Adam, but it didn’t feel like the connection was severed either, so at least he was definitely still alive. That was good. Tiftos had made sure that none of his thoughts was transmitted, and although he hadn’t heard anything from Adam since they left Mittens, he had been able to track him this far. Right now the connection was kind of unstable, so all he knew was that he was in this forest.

Which he was. But not for long.

After a time that felt like aeons, Adam finally reached the gaping maw of the mountain, which was the main entrance for the Evil Gods themselves, not that they were out rendezvousing much, but simply because Diabolus had deemed it a necessity. Sure, if any human actually got through Nihil Usquam and to Nihil Est, they would surely have found the entrance to the caverns below, but even if they did, so what? Not only were most if not all of the cultists here proficient in some form of combat, but the Evil Gods themselves were also known as such for a reason, each and every one of the five having performed one or more large-scale massacres on human life. One of the most famous examples being the Rain of Fire and the Five-Fold Defeat. All Evil Gods possessed enough strength to take out a small nation or so each. So, even if one of the most powerful humans stepped foot inside the cave, either the cultists would do them in, or they would be squashed to a red pulp by one of the bloodthirsty Evil Gods.

And there Adam stood, like a child returning home after running away, unwilling to knock on the door to be let in. Even if he didn’t make his presence known, somebody would surely notice him soon enough. And, sure enough, without even taking a single move forwards, he soon heard sounds of a commotion coming from the inside of the cave. Most noticeably, a loud, rumbling female voice was hurling obscenities in Äikink, the language of the nords. Adam wasn’t quite fluent in it. He had been forced to learn it since it was the only language Caïna knew. He had tried to get her to learn some other language, but that meathead warrior had refused to learn even Pterican out of some sort of nationalistic devotion that Adam couldn't understand.

Within only a few seconds, the voice, along with its owner, burst from the mouth of the cave, several devoted cultists hanging off of her beastly body in droves, apparently trying to stop her without much luck. “You bastaaaaarrrrrddddd!!” she roared as she pretty much flew at him, her claws bared and ready, and her characteristic battleaxe raised high. Adam didn’t even bother trying to evade since, even if he tried, he wouldn’t have been anywhere quick enough to actually succeed. His soft body was easily cleaved in half, and once Caïna had picked her axe back up and taken a step back, he simply allowed his natural regenerative powers to meld his sides back together.

Caïna, at seeing this, growled. Caïna was an odd creature/woman, having the upper body of a female warrior, with bulging muscles, icy blue eyes, and her short, blonde hair set up in a wolf-tail, which was really quite fitting, considering the shape that the rest of her lower body had taken. The front-half was that of a wolf, and the lower half was that of a lioness, the whole thing topped off with a scorpion’s tail. Atop her messy head was a pair of heron’s beaks for horns, which might have been the oddest feature of all.

Caïna was the youngest of the Five Evil Gods, having lived only just about 157 years. And although Adam wasn’t sure about why she joined them, he knew that she was a very fitting member, at least in terms of raw strength. She couldn’t use Magick, which was always bad for a strong being, but she usually made up for it by receiving help from her fellow Evil Gods by way of buffing spells and the such. Adam did not like her. She was a muscle brained idiot who kept rushing into battle and didn’t know her own limits. And, worst of all, she kept looking down on Adam who specialized in Magick, despite it usually being him who had to buff her up for battle. This would be a great time to put that runt in place.

“Hhaaaaahhh?? Not even a hi??? You turn up after Diabolus-knows-how-long, and this is what you do??!?! Well, if you think I’m going to let you just waltz right on in, you’ve got another thing coming!! Oh and suuuuuure, I can’t hurt you right now, but just you wait a moment, and I’ll make Eclair out of you!! No, wait, Escargot?... Aaarggghh, who cares!! I’ll flay you!! Come on out, Ptolemy!” Caïna shouted, talking way too much for Adam’s liking before turning to the entrance of the cave. There was nobody there.

And then, from the darkness, a single rat emerged, No, not a rat, a Rattice. On its six little chubby legs, it slowly trudged over to where the two were standing, a golden crown resting atop its tiny head. And then another emerged, similar in every way apart from the lack of a crown. And then another. And then another. And then a flood of Rattices spread from the mouth of the cave, all swarming around the crowned Rattice. The scuttling, squeaking mass of Rittices quickly rose up, elongated, and took form, until, finally, Ptolomaea stood before them. He was about as tall as the rest of them, but his body was longer. If it could be called “one” body. It consisted entirely of Rattices and was about 20 meters in length. It resembled a typical Rattice in many ways, except that it was much, much longer, having dozens of pairs of legs upon which to stand, making it look almost like a snake. The crowned Rattice had joined the rest of the writing mass, and its little golden crown was visible atop Ptolomaeas head.

The squeaking soon reached a chorus, before ending abruptly.

“So, you have returned…” the Rattices squeaked in unison like a giant choir. Of all the Evil Gods, Adam had to say he thought Ptolomaea was the weirdest. Of course, Ptolomaea probably thought Adam was the weirdest, but anyways. Ptolomaea sighed in an exaggerated motion. “Look, we know you’re the oldest of us and all, but you can’t just run off and expect us to take this lying down, and, well, if you’re wondering what Diabolus and Judecca are up to, they-,”

”SHUT UP AND BUFF ME, RATTICE DROPPING!!” Caïna shouted, cutting Ptolomaea off mid-sentence. Ptolomaea looked off at her, shrugged, sighed, and waved four pairs of Rattice-constructed Rattice hands, creating a few Magick circles, the most important one being the “Soul Husk” spell, that would wrap physical attacks in Magick, thus allowing them to harm even the elusive Beasts of the Spirit, such as Adam.

‘What a warm reception,’ Adam joked to himself as he raised both hands and about half a dozen tentacles. ‘Time to go all out.’

Elsewhere, the Randomized Bunch had finally found the courage to enter Nihil Usquam. At first, Tiftos, the only one who was really in a sound state of mind (according to him, at least), was a bit scared of getting attacked by the various beasts that occupied the forest, but after wandering the direction he had last sensed Adam in for about 15 minutes, he realized that there wasn’t a single beast around. Not a one. Something had frightened them enough so that they had all simply… ran away. And Tiftos had a feeling he knew who this might have been. Or, rather, what.

Eventually, they reached a small clearing. However, the clearing was hardly natural, as the trees that would otherwise have been there had been cruelly snapped off like twigs, lying haphazardly on the ground. These trees, as well as many other things in the clearing, were covered in a thin layer of a light greenish mucus, and the second he saw it, he simply had to shout out to everybody to avoid touching it at all costs. He didn’t have any proof, none at all, but he had a feeling that this stuff was toxic beyond measure. In the middle of the clearing, they found a small pile of child-sized clothes lying strewn about, some parts burnt from some weak acid or something.

“Is that?...” Ramona asked nobody in particular. And it was. Mirim fell to her knees. Kratos turned away. Master Pellons silently stared at the clothes. “But-, no! it can’t be!” Ramona continued, tears forming in her eyes. Tiftos couldn’t believe it. But his disbelief did not come from a place of denial. He could feel him. That presence was still there, and Tiftos could feel that, if he only reached out, he could say something to Adam, tell him how much he was worrying them, tell him they wouldn’t leave him alone. But, maybe, just maybe, he should tell his friends that Adam was still alive?...

...No. Tiftos was their friend, to be sure, but… Adam must have had a reason for this. A damn good reason. And, although he hardly wanted his friends to grieve in vain, he simply had to find out Adam’s motive behind all of this. With a trembling hand, Mirim pointed at a particularly slimy log.

“It-, it must have been that terrible creature, it-, it killed him!” she cried, a sob soon choking her when she realized what she had said. Dead. Killed. Kratos gritted his teeth and unsheeted his broadsword.

“We will return the favour,” he stated fearlessly. Kratos, without even waiting for the rest of the Randomized Bunch to follow him, started striding in the direction of Nihil Est.

In the distance, the group could hear the roaring and shouting of a warrior, strange squeaking, and the sound of explosions and Magick being cast. Obviously, a large-scale battle that no human could witness and survive was taking place. They had no real desire to come close to that battle too quickly, so although their pace was rather quick, they never actually broke into a sprint. The atmosphere was strained and solemn, but most of the sorrow over the “loss” of a beloved comrade was replaced by a vengeful rage, ready to burn anything in their past to exact revenge.

The battle, had it been against only one of the two, would have been a simple one. With Caïna, his regenerative ability would easily have outpaced her stamina, and after tiring her out, he could have finished her off with a simple spell or powerful swipe using one of his tentacles. Had he wanted to be particularly ruthless, he could even have strangled her to death. Ptolomaea would have been a bit more troubling since his skills lay in curse and support Magick and, strangely enough, disease itself.

Ptolomaea, much like Adam himself, was a passionate scholar of his craft, his craft being infectious diseases. Adam was uncertain about why he was so devoted to creating a disease that would wipe men (not man, men specifically) from the face of Lutum, but he nonetheless admired him for his passion. But, every time he created an infectious disease that didn’t kill specifically male humans, he would simply infect a couple of his Rattices with it, and use it as a weapon whenever a suitable occasion arose.

Adam had no good way of dealing with all these diseases, so his best way of dealing with this was to cut off the affected body part, or flush it out with Magick. Neither strategy was too effective, but it was pretty much all he could do. The curses weren’t anything dangerous since Adam had a ridiculously high defence against Magick, but Ptolomaeas support skills, when used on Caïna, could prove to be quite devastating.

However, not devastating enough.

And, when the unmarry band of adventurers reached the entrance to Nihil Est, they found a grisly sight laid out before them. Antenora, the Evil God of Disgust and Despair, held in his hand a small, silent Rattice, wearing a golden crown. And with a slight squeeze of its massive hand, the little rodent popped like a balloon full of blood and innards, it’s twig-sized bones instantly being ground to fine dust. Antenora released it from his grip, and the little blood-red thing fell into a soggy little pile on the stone ground, the golden, blood-stained crown clinking as it hit the ground before rolling away. Behind Antenora, a large, chimaera-like creature lay, it’d body covered in wounds and soaked in blood. Large, gaping burn-wounds showed off glistening white bones, and where the head should have been, was instead an empty space, the neck bleeding profusely even after she had been dead for minutes.

Antenoras beady white eyes, devoid of any emotion at the slaughter of creatures he’d lived with for hundreds of years, followed the rolling little golden crown with the mildest of interest. Finally, after rolling a good 50 meters or so, it finally stopped, having bumped into Tiftos’ boot. Tiftos looked down at the small, bloody crown, before rising his head to look at Antenora.

‘Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

Why were they here??’ Curse words Adam didn’t know he remembered suddenly rose to the occasion, and the undefeated, terror-incarnate suddenly felt a feeling of dread at seeing his (former?) friends look at him like that. That was not how he wanted his friends to look at him, with those frightened, awed expressions, too afraid to hurl, too disgusted to act. People had looked at him like that many times. In fact, few people hadn’t looked at him like that. But, this… this hurt.

Suddenly, a strange emotion washed over Tiftos. Fear, sorrow, despair, resignation… and suddenly, he was made extremely aware of exactly where Adam was. He was staring right at him. But, that couldn’t be, could it?...

And then, Antenora stumbled and wavered in form. It was strange to see a supposedly boneless creature stumble like that as if overcome with too much emotion to handle, but there it was. The twisted perversion of the human form that was Antenora had moved, and thus, the course of events that would bring about the next Rip was set in motion.

“AAAAARGHH!!!” Kratos suddenly roared, his broadsword held high as he charged at the being beyond human strength.

“H-, hAAAAAAHHH!!” Mirim shouted, before raising her hands to start casting whatever spells might possibly work on this creature. Ramona did the same as Kratos, minus the shouting, but with both pikes raised. Even Master Pellons, who hadn’t said anything since they’d seen that creature for the first time, rose his hands much like Mirim, despite having decided long ago that he wouldn’t actually be participating in the battles the Randomized Bunch was involved in.

“No-, don’t…” Tiftos meekly muttered, reaching out a hand towards the shrinking backs of Ramona and Kratos. Antenora, no, ADAM, seemed frightened, terrified, even, his beady, all-seeing eyes wide with fear.

He couldn’t hit them. They’d die. He couldn’t let them touch him, either, and not because he hated human touch still, but because, well… his skin was entirely coated in a lethal toxin, and he couldn’t possibly allow these people, his only true friends, to fall victim to him. And, to make matters worse, with the amount of Magick he had absorbed from his former fellow Evil Gods, he could sense that an evolutionary core had formed deep inside his body, and because of this, he would be unable to use Magick until he had allowed the evolutionary core to form entirely, and thus force him to evolve. When had he last evolved?... mmm, that must have been that time shortly after he had joined The Five Evil Gods, way back in… what was it?... 470-something After the Rip?...

Regardless! He couldn’t fight, he couldn’t use Magick, he couldn’t communicate, all he could do was run. And running was not his speciality. Telekinetic communication could probably have worked, but, well, no Magick, remember? So, with all the speed of a hyperactive snail, he entered the cave, turned around, and was immediately terrified by the fact that Ramona was about five seconds from cutting off one of his particularly long tentacles. If Ramona did cut it off, there was a good chance it would go spastic, which would result in her either getting squeezed to death or lethally poisoned, both of which were less than optimal.

So, he did the one thing he could do. Crouching down as much as a tentacled abomination possibly could, he put all strength he possibly had into his tentacles and jumped straight up, where he sank his clawed fingers into the roof of the cavern, and quickly pulled up his tentacles as well. Now, he didn’t know if Master Pellons or Mirim knew any spells that would allow anyone of them to fly up and “attack”, but even if that wasn’t the case, he still had to get away.

Crawling as fast as he possibly could on the roof, Adam soon found himself crawling through several caverns and tunnels he had never seen before, all the while being chased by his friends, who all seemed strangely pissed off about something Adam had no idea about. He could barely hear them over his own, extremely panicked thoughts, but he did find the time to, at times, send Tiftos a sad, pained glance. Tiftos didn’t respond, and he hadn’t said anything ever since this whole thing had happened.

And, eventually, after about thirty minutes, Adam found himself in a dead-end. It was a large room, about as large as the ritual chamber he used to be in weekly, but this room seemed… odd. It wasn’t lit by anything other than a large, reddish gem in the middle of the room that somewhat resembled a red, beating heart. This impression was made even stronger as the light being emitted from it came in pulses, along with a strange wave of pressure.

There he was, crouched at the very far end of the room, his arms on the wall behind him, his chest heaving for no good reason, and his eyes anxiously shifting between the strange crystal and the entrance. Soon enough, the panting, vengeful bunch entered, weapons at the ready, all fear abandoned, ready to take on an Evil God. Tiftos wasn’t even preparing a spell, unlike the rest of them, but in their rage, they had failed to notice this.

Adam didn’t like the way that gem looked. There was something about that gem that gave him a bad promotion, and yet, something about it also felt strangely nostalgic, like meeting an old relative again after years had gone by. It felt like, somehow, that gem was his one and only chance to escape without hurting those he cherished. If he only touched it, all of this would be over…

But he didn’t trust it. This man, this creature, who had trusted his instincts to the point of religious frenzy, now doubted what he believed to be true. But his friends were nearing, their arms raised, the red light from the pulsing gem distorting their wrathful faces into demonic imitations.

If he could have screamed, he would have.

But he didn’t.

He reached out,

Threw his body,

And grabbed the beating heart.

And then, he returned.