Althos, having watched as the titan's physical body collapsed and having watched Raverangos emerge from within the annihilated eye of the thing, turned his attention to the titan's spectral form. The thing was locked in a fierce battle with the devilish members of Althos' party.

Althos mentally reached out and "grabbed" his party members who were beside the unconscious form of the titan, and teleported all of them, and himself to the part of the arena wherein his party members were locked in a fierce battle against the lich-like spectral titan.

In an instant, the orc, the great-frog, the demon, and the god, were reunited with their companions. The spectral mass that embodied the titan's intelligence, magic, and hatred, noticed their sudden appearance. It calmly gazed at them, its eyes taking in the sight of them.

It noticed that Raverangos was coated in thick blood, and seemed to drip intraocular fluid. It realized that the demon was the one who took down its physical form. Its ethereal eyes seemed to light up, glowing a deep and powerful shade of purple. And then the thing opened its ghost-like mouth. And roared.

The sound the thing made was impressively noisy but it was nothing compared to the wail of the brutalized titan from before. The party members reacted in various ways while the thing raged due to the damage they had done to its physical body.

Salifinos, in particular, was eager to allow the thing to rage. That gave the imp a chance to wait out the cooldown time for its new, favored form of attack: its white-hot bolt. It also unfocused the thing, giving the imp a chance to further study its target.

Tristan, on the other hand, wasn't relaxing or studying her opponent. She was mentally dashing through her abilities, old and new, and wracked her brain for any possible way she could strike at that moment, as well as any way she could buff her allies.

Gallow, not having a particular method with which he could be useful in this magical fight, mostly relaxed. The orc was annoyed that he had due fairly little in this battle, but he did enjoy the sensation of tackling the gigantic titan's physical body. At that particular moment, the orc wondered if there was a way for him to ever gain magical abilities of his own, perhaps through a special type of service to Althos. He figured he should ask Tristan or Althos after this battle ended.

Raverangos delighted in feeling the rage of the titan's ego. The demon sensed that the creature's rage was mostly aimed at it, and that made it even more happy at that moment. The thing knew though, that since the battle was now going to be between magic users, its role was over.

Silander, having a few odd abilities in her repertoire, suspected that she may soon be asked to join this fight as well, and readied herself for action. She found the idea of fighting again to be a bit thrilling, even though she wasn't the most experienced combatant.

Althos walked forward until he was beside Tristan once again. He placed his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed it. His mind was calm, and he felt the end of this battle nearing. He spoke to the young priestess, his voice confident and soothing in the otherwise stressful situation.

"So... how do you wanna do this?"

At that moment, something about the deity's voice filled Tristan with determination. She looked up at her foe, the raging ethereal titan and in a move that closely mimicked Althos' moves, she grinned at her foe.

The spectral titan raged for nearly half of a minute, before finally beginning to calm down. When it began to calm itself, it glowered at the party. The mystical thing called out to the power that circulated its ethereal body, crisscrossing its form like a web of veins, and began to prepare its next attack by trying to ready a potent spell.

Althos moved forward, and mentally reached out to the thing. Instead of chatting with it, the deity quietly "put out" the magic that was circulating through the thing's body at its behest. The creature itself, still somewhat enraged, and unaware of the deity's quiet move, was shocked when the deity opened his mouth to speak.

"What do you think is going to happen here Narcolept?"

His voice was calm, suffused with the relaxed nature of the deity. He looked at the ethereal form of the titan, floating above the floor of the arena. Behind him his enhanced hearing made it clear to the young god that the physical form of the titan was down for the count. It was still alive, but it wasn't conscious and Althos doubted that it would regain consciousness anytime soon.

The ethereal titan looked at him, its purple eyes sizing him up. The arena was still for a second, as the titan pondered the deity's question. Then the thing answered his question.

"I'm going to defeat you. All of you."

The voice of thing was deep, echoing throughout the arena and in response to it, Althos began to laugh. After the deity laughed for about a quarter of a minute, the sound haunting and eerie in the arena, he readied a spell in his mind and began to speak.

"How? You now face our undivided attention, and if I wanted to, I could do this,"

The deity cast the spell, aiming it at the creature's arm and nowhere else. From the center of his forehead, a ray of transparent mystical energy shot out of the deity and sped through the air. The ray made contact with the ethereal form of the titan, even in mid-air. The deity had cast the spell the instant he said the word "this" so the titan had no time to react.

[Spell type: Alteration

Spell name: Spirit to Flesh

Description: This powerful spell transforms spiritual matter to flesh. Equivalents of it that transform magic to flesh, flesh to magic, flesh to spirit, and similar combinations that replace flesh with metal or wood, also exist.

Spell cost: 10,000 magical energy per cast.]

Not even an instant passed, and the spell took hold. The ethereal titan flinched as it felt the power of the spell spread from the area where it took the hit, square in the center of its chest, and felt it wiggle through its body until it reached one of its arms.

The arm in question, the titan's left arm, was transforming before the eyes of both the party and the titan. The titan turned to watch as its arm from its shoulder to the tips of its fingers solidified. The titan's face contained unabashed fear as it watched its spiritual limb become one of flesh and bone.

All of the onlookers watched as bones formed where once only spiritual energy had been. Then muscles appeared on top of those bones. And then finally layer upon layer of skin appeared and completed the disturbing transformation. And then, as suddenly as the spell had taken hold, the arm with nothing to connect it to the creature's spiritual mass, dropped from the titan's spiritual body and crashed onto the floor.

The arm was thick and heavy, so its fall and eventual crash caused it to disturb and blow away nearby dust when it smashed into the ground of the arena. Althos smirked at it, and considered piling on the horror by animating the thing, but ultimately decided that he had done enough for now.

So instead the deity looked at his foe and smirked. He didn't say anything, but the coldness and alienness of his gaze communicated his thoughts well enough.

Althos knew that there was no scenario in which the titan survived the next hour. In most scenarios the deity imagined the titan didn't survive the next five minutes. And such knowledge made the deity quite happy. Such a scenario meant that Tristan was closer to becoming a true priestess of his, and not just a cleric of a theoretical second dark saint.

Did a god... just transform part of my body into flesh and bone? How... can I combat that?

That was the first moment the titan legitimately considered that it could lose. Seconds of consideration later was the moment in which the titan realized it was going to lose. And that was the moment the titan knew it needed to come up with a plan. But it had spent too long either raging or trembling in fear because that was the moment one of its enemies decided to attack.

The tiny red imp cackled wildly as a white-hot bolt of fire once again appeared in its hands. The small thing grinned at both its master, that grin one of happy satisfaction, and its opponent. The second grin was a macabre, malicious one. The fire-happy imp threw itself off of the ground and hadn't yet released the fireball it casually held in between tiny palms.

"I still have to make you eat this!" Salifinos shouted, eagerly closing the distance between itself and the titan. The titan ceased its introspective scheming for a second, to try and use the energy it had gathered earlier before it was attacked. It "released" that energy at the imp, believing its attack would hammer the thing and cancel out the ball of flames it held.

No such thing occurred, and the titan was shocked to see that nothing exploded out of its body to slam into the flying imp. That was the moment the imp hurled its fiery payload at the titan, who didn't have the time needed to dodge out of the way.

The ball of fire jetted forth and flew through the air for less than a second, before making contact with the titan's center of spiritual mass. The titan watched as the flaming ball transformed and folded to fit its imposing spiritual mass, fear, and shock in his eyes.

The ball affixed itself to the titan's muscled, spiritual torso and then wrapped itself around the creature's chest. Seconds passed as the titan began to feel the pain of the fire licking its form, and then the fire spread. It quickly began to crawl across the thing's remaining arm, and down its legs. Finally, once it was steadily immolating the rest of its form, the fires spread to the titan's face.

At this moment the titan began to steadily descend, its form still and slack. Eventually it landed on the ground, fell to its knees and was still.

That was when the screeching began, an impressive feat considering the flames that covered its whole body, including its face. The titan began to emit some of the most pained wailing the party had ever heard. Unlike the titan's physical form, this wailing was more intelligent and contained words intermixed with unintelligent sounds rather than just being the wailing of a wild animal or savage humanoid.

Several moments of intense, mind-bending wailing passed and eventually the titan's spiritual form fell unconscious as well.

Tristan also fell to her knees as she realized that the battle was over. At last.

Tristan was still as she processed what happened. She felt... powerless. Her contributions to the battle were almost nonexistent, and so was her faith in herself at that moment.

A demon and an imp were the heroes who defeated the one who took my father from me...

She was despondent. She felt... weak.

Ages ago he tried to map out the monsters here... only to be beaten by this thing. To be eaten. And eventually referred to as a snack. And what does his daughter do? Wait for years, and eventually lead people here, only for those people to win, without her help.

Her mind was reeling from the shock of seeing a nefarious enemy, one she had hated since her father disappeared even if she didn't know what it looked like, brought so low.

Before her stood the unconscious form of the titan's spectral mass, on its knees, laid low by a powerful fireball tossed by an imp. Behind her, on the other side of the pit, laid the unconscious form of the titan's physical body. Around her, her allies and the creature who wanted her to serve him, waiting for her to move.

When she didn't, her mind too fragile and her ego too bruised, Althos walked in front of the titan's unconscious form. He wordlessly examined it, and silently cast another, more powerful form of the spirit-to-flesh spell he had used earlier. This time the thing's entire body was transformed. The spell was cast instantly, but the transformation process took an entire minute due to the amount of energy that was transformed.

Althos contemplated what to do at that moment. He knew that there was no chance that the titan would live beyond the next hour. He considered having Tristan execute it, maybe even torture it a bit, and readily accepted that that was the best plan of attack. But he wasn't done with the thing yet.

Althos had a few questions to ask the entity, and the fact that it was close to death didn't mean he'd allow this chance to expand his knowledge to slip away. He recalled and recast the same spell he had used to forcibly invade the goblin's mind, aiming it at the titan. His secondary will emerged and quietly asked him what he'd like to do.

Althos instructed the secondary will to encourage Tristan and to inform her that she was free to torture the thing as a way to vent her frustrations, but not kill it. Althos wanted to tell her to execute it on his own. He wanted his real-self, the self that was about to plunge into the titan's mind, to tell her that himself. And then he allowed the spell he had just cast to take hold.

Everything he could see went black for a second, while Althos' mind synchronized with the mind of the defeated titan. And then a single feature was added to the infinite darkness that surrounded him.

The changed scene around Althos reflected the brutal pain the party, Salifinos especially, had inflicted on the gigantic thing.

Althos found himself in an endless, black void aside from directly in front of him. In front of him he saw an oasis-like area, complete with a small pond and a house. A pond that was on fire. And the house, also on fire.

Althos grinned at the sight before him and began to walk towards the burning house.

Althos' physical form approached Tristan. The two locked eyes and Althos' secondary will considered what to do in that moment. He saw the despondent priestess and wondered what words of encouragement he could give her. What words would rouse her spirits.

"This victory is yours. Savor it. Learn from this moment, take a bit to mourn and recover... but also remember that come tomorrow you will be alive. And this titan won't. And that the end of the day... that's what matters. As long as you live, there's a chance to build a better tomorrow."

The two of them kept their gazes firmly locked even as Althos spoke. His voice was calm, confident, and his message was filled with simple truths. He could see tears forming in her eyes and he walked over to her and hugged her.

Althos' secondary will realized when he saw her beginning to tear up that maybe what she needed weren't kind words but something more simple, physical touch.

At that moment the half-devil, still wary of the godling, allowed herself to feel weak and returned the embrace. She began to weep into the deity's arms.

Within the mind of the titan, Althos repeated what he did while in the mind of the goblin. The deity boldly strode up to the house and entered it.

This time instead of finding himself in some meadow, the deity found himself inside of a replica of the arena-like chamber he was inside of physically.

The ethereal titan was unconscious, even in its own mind, and sprawled out across the floor of the pit.

Althos walked up to the thing, and quietly activated a single usage of a very shocking spell. Lightning flew out of his fingers and shocked the titan's unconscious form. The deity waited a few seconds, before realizing that the titan wouldn't wake up.

He rolled his eyes and decided to take a far more aggressive approach. He questioned how to do this.

[How can I just... break this thing's brain?]

And that was when he got a notification.

[Are you willing to be maximally efficient in absorbing the knowledge of your victim and thereby risk breaking their mind?]

He nodded and informed the system that he was more than happy to do that. The system responded quickly after that with a message alerting the young god to what was to happen next.

[Response received and recorded. Beginning the memory and knowledge extraction process now. Preparing to return you to your body.]

And then Althos was summarily booted out of the unconscious titan's mind and teleported back to his physical form. He instantly reentered his body, only to find that Tristan was still holding him. He smiled at her, and spoke quietly.

"It's alright. It's over."

His gentle voice soothed her tired emotions, and relaxed her. He carefully and gently touched her back, beginning to massage it lightly to work out the physical tension she felt.

A few minutes passed, and the girl ended the hug herself. She pulled herself away from Althos, backing away from the deity and looked away. There was a bit of color in her cheeks and Althos laughed, but only internally.

He looked out and examined the scene before them. He made eye contact with each of his followers, and mentally checked in on them.

He spent a few minutes determining that they were okay, and then he looked behind him. He spoke, while looking at the titan's unconscious spiritual form.

"Its time we finish this quest. I am going to go and claim the dungeon-heart. You all stay here and accompany Tristan. Tristian, begin to do... whatever you need to do to that thing. If you want to torture it, feel free. If you want to tear it apart, go for it. But we're leaving this dungeon soon. Keep that in mind."

Tristan listened to Althos and nodded at him. She began to walk towards the unconscious form of the titan. He began to look around the arena. He quickly spotted the source of the light from earlier, from before the fight.

Located not quite at the other end of the arena stood an entrance to another chamber. A small, cylindrical chamber that contained a floating, glowing sphere. Althos grinned and didn't walk towards it but instead hurtled himself there, using teleportation magic.

Althos instantly appeared inside of the chamber. He turned around and saw his companions watching as Tristan threw a few test punches at the now physical form of the titan. He grinned as his enhanced hearing picked up the groans of the pained titan. Then he turned back and looked at the glowing, spherical heart of the dungeon before him.

The thing was small, perhaps several centimeters tall and wide. It was beating, pulsing every few seconds like a regular albeit slow heart. It didn't look like a heart though, at least not one belonging to humanoids. Instead, it was a perfect, white sphere that radiated wickedly bright light. Althos strained to look at it and approached it. He extended his hand forward so as to touch the thing.

And with this... I complete another quest, don't I? I wonder what happens next...

What happened next was that the young god got another notification.

[Do you wish to claim the dungeon heart of the tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisper as your own? If you do, you gain possession of this tomb, you learn its history, you gain access to the dungeon master's menu, and you complete the quest named "Conquer the Tomb of Agowraith the Kingwhisperer". And you gain control of any creatures, aside from boss-monsters still living in this dungeon. They become your familiars.]

Althos grinned at the notification in front of him and told it that yes, he did wish to claim to the dungeon as his own. And when he did he was hit by a deluge of notifications.

The deity actually staggered as he took in the mass of information that hit him. Perhaps the most shocking of which was the history-related notification that he received.

[New Notification Type Discovered! History.

History: The True Story Of The Tomb of Agowraith The Kingwhisper.

This tomb is a dungeon, though it has since been corrupted from its original purpose. That's due to the tomb's intimate history with a historian, temptress, and seer who was the author who wrote the dual-history and prophecy that would become known as the tale of the Dark Saint and eventually, the tomb's conquest by an odd undying titan.

Agowraith herself designed this tomb to become a place wherein she, a rare type of devil known as an Owl-Devil, could rest until such a time when the second dark saint arrived. She made use of the dungeon-heart to create magical designs for a number of luxuries, from a range of chamber templates to other features that cost an incredible amount of magical energy, such as the tomb becoming mobile or even flying, to create.

She even created a servant, accidentally making a whole new species, known as a floating skull, that simplemindedly recognized anyone who controlled the tomb as "Agowraith", stupidly believing it to be a title and not a name, and designed it to aide whoever controlled the tomb and the dungeon heart that powered it. Her servant was loyal, but not smart.

She also created puzzles and traps to test the abilities of anyone who managed to get inside the tomb, believing that it was possible that one day more than one creature would possess such capabilities. She was wrong.

Unfortunately, Agowraith herself met her end, in the very place she called her tomb, when an invader came. Three thousand years ago, this tomb was invaded, Agowraith herself killed by a sly creature named Narcolept, and the tomb was conquered.

Narcolept, quickly seeing the potential in the tomb as a lair, set up shop here and didn't change many of the settings in the tomb such as allowing it to keep its name and to intentionally send out dreams to devils and other sentient creatures far away so that they may be foolishly tempted to seek out the tomb themselves.

Tragically, Narcolept did dismantle the features that forbade access to the tomb to anyone who couldn't command an soul-orb, creating a failsafe that allowed patient devils to enter by automatically opening the door if they waited a sufficient amount of time.

Narcolept successfully built a lair in the tomb, dismantling many of the puzzles within the tomb, simplifying the dungeon so that anyone who stumbled across the tomb would be brought to its pit safe and sound. Then the creature, an undying titan, would summarily devour those who made it to the "end" of the tomb.

The massive monster would occasionally grow hungry and will the once mobile tomb to appear, open and inviting, to lone devils, or even mortals in Infernius, of sufficient strength. In time the vicious titan ate thousands of would-be conquerors, including high-tier devils and even a handful of heroes, emperors, and kings from a range of mortal worlds.

The titan tricked the floating skull into believing this place was a prison from which it, 'Agowraith' needed victims to eventually fuel an escape attempt and maintained that facade even when facing foes for simplicity's sake.

In truth, its physical form was weak for one of its kind, and so the thing's spiritual body dominated the creature and its use of its physical form was to be little more than a distraction while it targeted magic users and drained them of power.

Narcolept was a serial liar, and its lies were so powerful they corrupted and distorted the history of this place, even affecting the system itself. This tomb was supposed to be a testing ground to help the second dark saint. Instead, it's become a final resting place for many great heroes, powerful devils, and tyrannical conquerors who set out to acquire mysterious "treasures" within the tomb's fabled passageways.

Narcolept itself was defeated only when it arrogantly thought it could handle a god. And even that wasn't enough to kill. Even now, the titan rises. Well... not quite the titan.]

Several minutes passed in the time that it took Althos to read the notification he had received. The last sentences of the notification alarmed him, and he teleported himself back to his friends.

He was not at all surprised to see the spiritual, yet now still fleshy, form of the titan conscious again. But something was different this time. Among other things was the fact that his friends were covered in magically inflicted wounds and had been strewn about the arena, blasted by what was most likely magical energy.

The titan was beginning to ascend off of the ground, its eyes cold and glossed over. Two types of energy radiated out of it, frigid energy coating and freezing the ground beneath it, while hot steam rose off of its shoulders. It opened its mouth to speak.

"Well well well... I've finally found you, godling. And you've brought some friends? More than just that pesky little imp, I see. I'm so disappointed I had to borrow a mortal's body to see you again little godling... are you scared of me?"

The voice that came out of Narcolept's mouth wasn't the deep voice of the undying titan. It was the sinister voice of Paimon, the devilish overlord and true-devil who tyrannically lorded over the city of Bastille. Althos looked at the possessed body of the undying titan and allowed a neutral expression to fall over his face.

"Paimon... we meet again."

And with that, the second phase of the battle within the Tomb of Agowraith began. Althos received one more minor notification before he moved towards the one creature he'd consider a personal enemy.

[Major Battle Alert!

The system is suspending all non-major notifications until the battle is over. Once the fight is over, rewards and other notifications will occur as normal.]