Deep within the haggard drylands of the Kodomo plains, where the sun beat down with an unforgiving malice, a lone oasis shimmered like a mirage. It was one of the few verdant heartbeats in a land stretched nigh endless, a canvas of sun-baked dunes and fragmented stone that rose like petrified mountains against the searing sky. Winds, hot and insistent, whipped through the terrain, making the sand undulate like water, forming mirage-like waves that promised a phantom coolness.
Sitting upon a moss-covered stone, its surface cool beneath his touch despite the ambient inferno, the figure observed his reflection in the crystal clear waters of a pond. This was Kinslayer. For the first time since his brutal skirmish with the last group of assassins sent after him, he had shed the anonymity of his mask. The face staring back at him was young, still bearing the smooth lines of youthful vigor, yet crisscrossed with the subtle, deep-set creases of unspoken burdens. It was a face marred by ambition, yes, but more so by the crushing weight of awareness, the grim realization of a fate no child was ever meant to bear. Yet bear it with tenacity, he had.
The sensation of his own exposed skin, the raw sight of his unshielded features, felt foreign, almost alien. Vulnerable. But here, in the lonely, desolate expanse of the Kodomo plains, he was far from anyone or anything that could inflict harm upon him, or, perhaps more importantly, that he could harm. The silence, broken only by the sighing of the wind, was a sanctuary.
He had been traveling for a week straight, pushing his body and spirit to their breaking point. Untamed horrors and bestial abominations, defying the very logic of this world, had been his constant companions. All for the sake of fulfilling a task bequeathed to him by the Kesmet, the powerful, enigmatic witches who presided over the Midlight Bedlam—a shadowy sect that oversaw the bounty hunters of Edo, the infamous Bingo Knights.
Reluctantly, he had played their games. He held no personal interest in the blood-stained coin of a bounty hunter, yet he had donned the mantle as a necessary means to a far greater end. By fulfilling his task, by finding the rare, archaic components for their ritual item, the Kismet, in turn, would help him achieve what had become his ultimate, most immediate goal: to strip the mighty Djynn of Darkness and Chaos, Aphosis, of its insidious will and bind it to his dogma once and for all.
To achieve that, to finally sever the parasitic link, would avail Kinslayer of the full breadth of the Nether Serpent’s power without the constant, gnawing concern of it trying to seize control of his body for its own malevolent ends. He had already suffered so much loss at the hands of the Nether Serpent’s inexorable tenacity, the relentless pursuit of its desires, its ancient edicts. Family, friends—all were but pawns to it, replaceable, unknowing vectors in its twisted game. It hadn’t hesitated to remove them, just as it had done to the Owaki clan, just as it had done to his grandfather, Yin, whose life Kinslayer himself had been forced to extinguish under Aphosis’s cruel puppetry.
But this, this agonizing journey to total autonomy, was drawing to a close. He had vanquished the needed creatures. Each hunt had been a test, trying him in ways that pushed his shinobi abilities to the very brink of collapse. Yet, he had managed to succeed with all three, without fail. A cold pride flickered amidst the weariness in his chest as he recalled the details, the price paid for each sacred, monstrous component.
The Snake That Swallowed God
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
The first, the spine of a Dinagourge, had sent him spiraling into the subterranean chasms beneath the perilous Ember Peaks. The Kismet’s words had been chillingly precise: "The Spine of a Dinagourge. A demon whose breath is said to be from the underworld itself. It must be harvested while the creature still draws it."
The Dinagourge’s lair was a suffocating crucible of heat and acrid fumes. Air shimmered with concentrated mana, thick and toxic, as Kinslayer navigated the labyrinthine tunnels carved by the beast’s passage. The walls pulsed with an unnatural, fiery light, reflecting off obsidian scales and jagged crystalline formations. He could hear its thunderous breathing long before he saw it—a cavernous inhale that sucked the air from his lungs, followed by an exhale that roared like a furnace, spewing forth a torrent of sulfurous, molten rock.
The creature itself was a nightmare made flesh: a leviathan of hardened magma and writhing muscle, its serpentine body scaled in iridescent obsidian, its maw a gaping portal to an inferno. To approach it meant death by incineration. To harvest its spine while it still drew breath meant a grotesque dance on the precipice of that oblivion.
Kinslayer had relied on his Shi clan training to navigate the terrain. To divert the beast's attention, he manipulated shadows. He forged a diversion, a large, flickering illusion of prey that drew the Dinagourge’s gaze, and with it, its molten breath. While the beast roared and incinerated the phantom, Kinslayer moved, a blur of shadow and controlled naten. He plunged into the periphery of the inferno.
A feat of madness for any other. But the Shi were masters of thermal energy. The advanced tech embedded within his flesh glowed crimson, syphoning the catastrophic heat, converting a fraction of it into usable energy. Yet even for him, it was an agony bordering on obliteration. The pressure was a different beast altogether; it felt like the immense grip of a god trying to crush him into paste. Gritting his teeth, he used the brief window to scale the colossal back, his boots smoldering, seeking the specific nexus point where its spine pulsed with raw, demonic energy.
Every step was a trial by fire. Every breath a gulp of liquid flame. He reached the base of its skull, feeling the seismic tremors of its breathing vibrate through his bones. His augmented eyes scanned the creature in microseconds, mapping vital points and structural weaknesses. Drawing his katana, Kuroi Ryu, the blade sparked, blooming to life with a crackling veil of lightning. This wasn’t a killing blow; it was a surgical strike. With a guttural roar that was torn from a place deeper than pain, he plunged the blade deep, severing the ancient, energy-charged bone. He pulled it free in a single, agonizing motion.
The Dinagourge convulsed, a dying star collapsing in on itself, its final roar tearing at the very fabric of the earth. Kinslayer barely escaped the ensuing cataclysm, his cloak a smoldering rag, his lungs seared, the demon’s monstrous spine—still faintly pulsing with wicked, dark energy—clutched grimly in his scorched hand. The smell of brimstone and his own burnt flesh clung to him for days, a perfume of damnation.
The Dinagourge’s lair was a suffocating crucible of heat and acrid fumes. Air shimmered with concentrated mana, thick and toxic, as Kinslayer navigated the labyrinthine tunnels carved by the beast’s passage. The walls pulsed with an unnatural, fiery light, reflecting off obsidian scales and jagged crystalline formations. He could hear its thunderous breathing long before he saw it—a cavernous inhale that sucked the air from his lungs, followed by an exhale that roared like a furnace, spewing forth a torrent of sulfurous, molten rock.
The creature itself was a nightmare made flesh: a leviathan of hardened magma and writhing muscle, its serpentine body scaled in iridescent obsidian, its maw a gaping portal to an inferno. To approach it meant death by incineration. To harvest its spine while it still drew breath meant a grotesque dance on the precipice of that oblivion.
Kinslayer had relied on his Shi clan training to navigate the terrain. To divert the beast's attention, he manipulated shadows. He forged a diversion, a large, flickering illusion of prey that drew the Dinagourge’s gaze, and with it, its molten breath. While the beast roared and incinerated the phantom, Kinslayer moved, a blur of shadow and controlled naten. He plunged into the periphery of the inferno.
A feat of madness for any other. But the Shi were masters of thermal energy. The advanced tech embedded within his flesh glowed crimson, syphoning the catastrophic heat, converting a fraction of it into usable energy. Yet even for him, it was an agony bordering on obliteration. The pressure was a different beast altogether; it felt like the immense grip of a god trying to crush him into paste. Gritting his teeth, he used the brief window to scale the colossal back, his boots smoldering, seeking the specific nexus point where its spine pulsed with raw, demonic energy.
Every step was a trial by fire. Every breath a gulp of liquid flame. He reached the base of its skull, feeling the seismic tremors of its breathing vibrate through his bones. His augmented eyes scanned the creature in microseconds, mapping vital points and structural weaknesses. Drawing his katana, Kuroi Ryu, the blade sparked, blooming to life with a crackling veil of lightning. This wasn’t a killing blow; it was a surgical strike. With a guttural roar that was torn from a place deeper than pain, he plunged the blade deep, severing the ancient, energy-charged bone. He pulled it free in a single, agonizing motion.
The Dinagourge convulsed, a dying star collapsing in on itself, its final roar tearing at the very fabric of the earth. Kinslayer barely escaped the ensuing cataclysm, his cloak a smoldering rag, his lungs seared, the demon’s monstrous spine—still faintly pulsing with wicked, dark energy—clutched grimly in his scorched hand. The smell of brimstone and his own burnt flesh clung to him for days, a perfume of damnation.
Last edited by Kinslayer on Tue Mar 31, 2026 12:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
Next came the insidious challenge of the Nihlea Crow. "The feather of a Nihlea Crow, A devilish bird found only in the sunless, lower regions of the realm. It does not fly; it moves between moments of despair.” This hunt had led him into the abyssal depths of the Sunken Spires, a forgotten kingdom swallowed by shadow and sorrow.
The Sunken Spires were a place where light had died, where the air itself felt heavy with ancient grief, a mausoleum of broken dreams. The architecture, once grand, lay in skeletal ruins, choked by perpetual twilight. The Nihlea Crow was not a creature of open conflict; it was a whisper, a phantom. It flitted through the broken architecture, its form a perpetually shifting distortion, visible only in the periphery of vision, identifiable by the profound chill of hopelessness it left in its wake. Tracking something that existed between moments of despair was a nightmare. It had no physical presence to follow, no scent, no sound. It was an absence, a void that deepened the existing sorrow. Every flicker of fear, every pang of regret, every memory of Aphosis’s atrocities, brought it closer, like a morbid magnet. It fed on such raw emotional wounds, drawing strength from the very fabric of human suffering.
Kinslayer knew that pursuing it with traditional methods would be futile. He couldn’t outrun or outfight something that transcended physical space. He had to meet it on its own terms, in the realm of the mind. He sat amidst the ruins, choosing a collapsed archway that framed a vista of utter desolation. He closed his eyes, letting the oppressive darkness seep into him, not as an enemy, but as a medium. He remembered Yin’s final, betrayed gaze, the image burning behind his eyelids. He remembered the screams of the Owaki; their land was consumed by Aphosis’s influence, their blood on his hands. He remembered the cold, alien presence of Aphosis within him, a constant reminder of his own monstrous potential. The agony of seeing the onster that made his mother into. He opened himself fully to the despair, not to be consumed by it, but to understand it, to map its intricate ebb and flow, to become a beacon of sorrow.
The crow, drawn by the raw, unfettered sadness emanating from him, began to manifest more clearly. Its form was an inky void, a jagged silhouette against the deeper blackness, its eyes pinpricks of malevolent starlight that seemed to drink the light from his very soul. It circled him, a silent predator sensing a feast of sorrow. Kinslayer felt its cold tendrils probing his mind, exploring the jagged edges of his guilt, trying to deepen the despair, to break him, to turn his sorrow into a feast. But this time, he wasn’t resisting. He was preparing. He allowed its probes, mapping its ethereal pathways, understanding its reliance on the emotional resonance of its prey. He felt the precipice of madness, the edge of true oblivion, but held it at bay with the ironclad will of a Shi shinobi.
As the crow descended, its form coalescing into a more solid shape, moments from plucking at the tendrils of his soul, Kinslayer enacted his gambit. He didn’t fight the despair; he stopped it, abruptly. He drew upon his deepest shinobi discipline, a technique of absolute mental detachment, emptying his mind, severing the emotional connection to his suffering with a stark, terrifying resolve. For a fleeting instant, there was no despair, no hope, no memory, no past, no future—only a profound, absolute void. He became nothing, a temporary annihilation of self.
In that infinitesimally brief moment between moments, the Nihlea Crow, caught between its usual anchor points, faltered. Its uncanny movement ability, reliant on the fluidity of despair, seized. It hung, suspended, a solid, vulnerable target for the first time in its unnatural existence. Kinslayer’s hand shot out, not with a weapon, but with a precise, almost tender swiftness, guided by instinct honed over a thousand battles. He plucked a single, iridescent black feather from its wing before the crow, with a shriek that echoed with pure anguish—a sound born of its own despair at being so utterly deprived—tore itself free, dissolving back into the imperceptible currents of sorrow. The feather, still warm with residual despair, felt like a shard of frozen night in his palm, a testament to a battle fought not with steel, but with the very essence of his being.
The Sunken Spires were a place where light had died, where the air itself felt heavy with ancient grief, a mausoleum of broken dreams. The architecture, once grand, lay in skeletal ruins, choked by perpetual twilight. The Nihlea Crow was not a creature of open conflict; it was a whisper, a phantom. It flitted through the broken architecture, its form a perpetually shifting distortion, visible only in the periphery of vision, identifiable by the profound chill of hopelessness it left in its wake. Tracking something that existed between moments of despair was a nightmare. It had no physical presence to follow, no scent, no sound. It was an absence, a void that deepened the existing sorrow. Every flicker of fear, every pang of regret, every memory of Aphosis’s atrocities, brought it closer, like a morbid magnet. It fed on such raw emotional wounds, drawing strength from the very fabric of human suffering.
Kinslayer knew that pursuing it with traditional methods would be futile. He couldn’t outrun or outfight something that transcended physical space. He had to meet it on its own terms, in the realm of the mind. He sat amidst the ruins, choosing a collapsed archway that framed a vista of utter desolation. He closed his eyes, letting the oppressive darkness seep into him, not as an enemy, but as a medium. He remembered Yin’s final, betrayed gaze, the image burning behind his eyelids. He remembered the screams of the Owaki; their land was consumed by Aphosis’s influence, their blood on his hands. He remembered the cold, alien presence of Aphosis within him, a constant reminder of his own monstrous potential. The agony of seeing the onster that made his mother into. He opened himself fully to the despair, not to be consumed by it, but to understand it, to map its intricate ebb and flow, to become a beacon of sorrow.
The crow, drawn by the raw, unfettered sadness emanating from him, began to manifest more clearly. Its form was an inky void, a jagged silhouette against the deeper blackness, its eyes pinpricks of malevolent starlight that seemed to drink the light from his very soul. It circled him, a silent predator sensing a feast of sorrow. Kinslayer felt its cold tendrils probing his mind, exploring the jagged edges of his guilt, trying to deepen the despair, to break him, to turn his sorrow into a feast. But this time, he wasn’t resisting. He was preparing. He allowed its probes, mapping its ethereal pathways, understanding its reliance on the emotional resonance of its prey. He felt the precipice of madness, the edge of true oblivion, but held it at bay with the ironclad will of a Shi shinobi.
As the crow descended, its form coalescing into a more solid shape, moments from plucking at the tendrils of his soul, Kinslayer enacted his gambit. He didn’t fight the despair; he stopped it, abruptly. He drew upon his deepest shinobi discipline, a technique of absolute mental detachment, emptying his mind, severing the emotional connection to his suffering with a stark, terrifying resolve. For a fleeting instant, there was no despair, no hope, no memory, no past, no future—only a profound, absolute void. He became nothing, a temporary annihilation of self.
In that infinitesimally brief moment between moments, the Nihlea Crow, caught between its usual anchor points, faltered. Its uncanny movement ability, reliant on the fluidity of despair, seized. It hung, suspended, a solid, vulnerable target for the first time in its unnatural existence. Kinslayer’s hand shot out, not with a weapon, but with a precise, almost tender swiftness, guided by instinct honed over a thousand battles. He plucked a single, iridescent black feather from its wing before the crow, with a shriek that echoed with pure anguish—a sound born of its own despair at being so utterly deprived—tore itself free, dissolving back into the imperceptible currents of sorrow. The feather, still warm with residual despair, felt like a shard of frozen night in his palm, a testament to a battle fought not with steel, but with the very essence of his being.
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
The last component, the blood of a Ziocorn, had been the heaviest burden. "And lastly, “The blood of a Ziocorn. A being so radiant, its mere existence is a balm to the world. To slay it is considered a bane upon the very soul of the murderer." This had taken him to the Whispering Glades, a sanctuary of vibrant life nestled atop the highest peaks of the Azure Spires, a place untouched by the world’s growing corruption.
The Whispering Glades shimmered with an ethereal light, a tapestry of impossibly verdant foliage and crystalline streams. Here, the air was warm with life and rich with untold scents of exotic flora. The Ziocorn was not a beast to be hunted, but a living beacon of purity. Its presence alone healed the earth, warmed the air, and soothed the heart. To behold it was to feel a forgotten peace, a primordial calm that seeped into the deepest cracks of one’s soul. Its body shimmered with an inner light, casting soft, golden hues on everything around it. Its horn spiraled with celestial grace, a conduit of healing energy, and its eyes held the wisdom of ages, gentle and all-knowing. The entire Glade thrived in its aura, a verdant bubble of perfection in a decaying world. Slaying it for its blood felt like an act of sacrilege, a defilement of everything Kinslayer instinctively valued, a true bane upon the soul. He, who already bore the guilt of Yin’s death and countless others, struggled immensely with this directive, feeling the weight of the moral abyss before him.
He spent days observing it, meditating in its light, feeling the profound calm it offered, a stark contrast to the endless storm within him. He watched it graze, its movements fluid and graceful, as life blossomed effortlessly in its wake. He wrestled with his conscience, the Kismet’s cold demands clashing with his own weary morality. Was his goal, his freedom from Aphosis, truly worth such an atrocity? The answer, always, came back to Yin. To the Owaki. To the untold destruction Aphosis would unleash if it were ever truly free. The answer was yes. It had to be. This act, however heinous, was a sacrifice for the greater good, a personal damnation for the salvation of an entire world.
One twilight, as the Ziocorn grazed peacefully by a crystal waterfall, pouring its benevolent energy into the earth, Kinslayer approached. The creature, sensing the conflict but no immediate malice, merely regarded him with gentle, luminous eyes. Kinslayer knelt, Kuroi Ryu still sheathed, his heart a leaden weight in his chest.
He spoke, a hoarse whisper in the hallowed silence. “Forgive me,” he murmured, the words sounding hollow and pathetic. “The monster I carry… it cannot be allowed to wake. Your light must be used to ensure a greater darkness does not fall. There is no solace in this for me, only necessity.”
With a final, trembling breath, Kinslayer drew Kuroi Ryu. The blade, usually a tool of swift destruction, felt heavy, an instrument of profound sorrow. The Ziocorn watched, unmoving, its luminous eyes reflecting the twilight sky and Kinslayer's tear-streaked face. There was no fear in its gaze, only understanding, and perhaps, pity. Kinslayer’s strike was not savage, but surgical, a single, precise cut to the delicate vein just beneath its foreleg, chosen to minimize its suffering and to allow the lifeblood to flow freely.
The creature shuddered, a soft whimper escaping its throat, a sound that tore at Kinslayer's very core. Its body sagged, its inner light flickering, then dimming. He collected the shimmering, golden blood in a small, ancient vial provided by the Kismet, its warmth a stark contrast to the cold dread settling in his heart. As its light faded, the vibrant colors of the Glade around them seemed to mute, the life force itself withdrawing.
Kinslayer stayed by its side long after its last breath, his hand resting on its cooling hide, his head bowed. He tasted ash in his mouth, the spiritual bane already taking root. He had harvested the spine of a demon, stolen the feather of a phantom, and now, he had slain purity itself. The air, once so serene, now felt heavy with a profound, irreplaceable loss. The earth had wept, and Kinslayer, warrior though he was, wept with it.
The hunts were complete. The materials, now clutched in a pouch at his side, pulsed with their own dark, despairing, and sacred energies. He had paid the Kismet’s price in blood, sweat, and soul. Now, only the rite remained, the final confrontation with the black sun within him. The memory of the Ziocorn’s gentle eyes would forever haunt him, a silent accusation, another heavy reminder of the cost of the grim freedom he chased.
The Whispering Glades shimmered with an ethereal light, a tapestry of impossibly verdant foliage and crystalline streams. Here, the air was warm with life and rich with untold scents of exotic flora. The Ziocorn was not a beast to be hunted, but a living beacon of purity. Its presence alone healed the earth, warmed the air, and soothed the heart. To behold it was to feel a forgotten peace, a primordial calm that seeped into the deepest cracks of one’s soul. Its body shimmered with an inner light, casting soft, golden hues on everything around it. Its horn spiraled with celestial grace, a conduit of healing energy, and its eyes held the wisdom of ages, gentle and all-knowing. The entire Glade thrived in its aura, a verdant bubble of perfection in a decaying world. Slaying it for its blood felt like an act of sacrilege, a defilement of everything Kinslayer instinctively valued, a true bane upon the soul. He, who already bore the guilt of Yin’s death and countless others, struggled immensely with this directive, feeling the weight of the moral abyss before him.
He spent days observing it, meditating in its light, feeling the profound calm it offered, a stark contrast to the endless storm within him. He watched it graze, its movements fluid and graceful, as life blossomed effortlessly in its wake. He wrestled with his conscience, the Kismet’s cold demands clashing with his own weary morality. Was his goal, his freedom from Aphosis, truly worth such an atrocity? The answer, always, came back to Yin. To the Owaki. To the untold destruction Aphosis would unleash if it were ever truly free. The answer was yes. It had to be. This act, however heinous, was a sacrifice for the greater good, a personal damnation for the salvation of an entire world.
One twilight, as the Ziocorn grazed peacefully by a crystal waterfall, pouring its benevolent energy into the earth, Kinslayer approached. The creature, sensing the conflict but no immediate malice, merely regarded him with gentle, luminous eyes. Kinslayer knelt, Kuroi Ryu still sheathed, his heart a leaden weight in his chest.
He spoke, a hoarse whisper in the hallowed silence. “Forgive me,” he murmured, the words sounding hollow and pathetic. “The monster I carry… it cannot be allowed to wake. Your light must be used to ensure a greater darkness does not fall. There is no solace in this for me, only necessity.”
With a final, trembling breath, Kinslayer drew Kuroi Ryu. The blade, usually a tool of swift destruction, felt heavy, an instrument of profound sorrow. The Ziocorn watched, unmoving, its luminous eyes reflecting the twilight sky and Kinslayer's tear-streaked face. There was no fear in its gaze, only understanding, and perhaps, pity. Kinslayer’s strike was not savage, but surgical, a single, precise cut to the delicate vein just beneath its foreleg, chosen to minimize its suffering and to allow the lifeblood to flow freely.
The creature shuddered, a soft whimper escaping its throat, a sound that tore at Kinslayer's very core. Its body sagged, its inner light flickering, then dimming. He collected the shimmering, golden blood in a small, ancient vial provided by the Kismet, its warmth a stark contrast to the cold dread settling in his heart. As its light faded, the vibrant colors of the Glade around them seemed to mute, the life force itself withdrawing.
Kinslayer stayed by its side long after its last breath, his hand resting on its cooling hide, his head bowed. He tasted ash in his mouth, the spiritual bane already taking root. He had harvested the spine of a demon, stolen the feather of a phantom, and now, he had slain purity itself. The air, once so serene, now felt heavy with a profound, irreplaceable loss. The earth had wept, and Kinslayer, warrior though he was, wept with it.
The hunts were complete. The materials, now clutched in a pouch at his side, pulsed with their own dark, despairing, and sacred energies. He had paid the Kismet’s price in blood, sweat, and soul. Now, only the rite remained, the final confrontation with the black sun within him. The memory of the Ziocorn’s gentle eyes would forever haunt him, a silent accusation, another heavy reminder of the cost of the grim freedom he chased.
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
-The Following Day-
After his reflection at the Oasis centered within the Komodo plains, Kin found himself back within the welcoming walls of Dunlao, the City of Commerce. The air reverberated with the usual hum of busy nightlife, a symphony of commerce and vice. Below, the Low Markets still sprawled, even in the late hours, a labyrinth of stalls where the scent of roasted meats mingled with expensive oils and the sharp, metallic tang of high-stakes energy trading. He could almost hear the bartering for esquist naten-infused fabrics that shimmered like liquid moonlight, even from this height. Further up, the Entertainment District pulsed with a different kind of energy, a shimmering sprawl of tea houses and gambling dens where rival generals, who would seek each other’s heads on a battlefield, shared sake.
Kin, however, could be seen trekking up the winding Crystaline Spire, where the administrative district sat, a stark contrast of white stone and crystal that regulated the flow of wealth, ensuring that while the rest of Edo burned, Dunlao prospered. Masked once more. Upon the very tip of the economic spire was the Kismet. Those cunning witches, despite their youthful appearance, reeked of magic equally as old as the Nether Serpent itself, with power and knowledge to match. He didn't need to take the stairs; flight, teleportation, velocity manipulation, and dozens of other ways to move through and around the world itself were at his command. Yet he took this scenic route for a purpose.
To walk the world, slowly, as men do one final time.
As he was now, he was a far cry from what one would consider human. His body was the host of hundreds of thousands of tiny AIONS, a black tide that repaired and augmented. Ophidian had become intertwined with his very marrow, a deep, resonant hum that vibrated through every bone. If not for the Shi's natural accelerated regeneration and the added regenerative powers of the nanites themselves, he would have succumbed to metal poisoning ages ago.
His body hummed as a machine does, his bio-electrical pulse thrummed deeper than a normal man's, his mind coldly logical, analytical to the last letter, and yet. Despite all the things he had done, the acts of both kindness and damnation he had enacted, the beating, rhythmic pounding of his heart remained human, mortal.
Memories of his mother, ones he had tried to suppress, resurfaced. What it was like to hold her weighted, tired form in his hands. The fleeting joy he’d crafted for them to experience in her final moments was the far hope of a life he accepted could never be. Their happiness was stolen from them by the insidious oppression of the Owaki and Yaarou clans.
"Mother...forgive me...please..." he whispered on the fading currents of wind caressing his short black hair. "I'm sorry...I couldn't be the son you deserved...." He saw once more the pain in her eyes, reflected in the polished obsidian steps, even as he walked past the guard to the Midlight Bedlam's sanctuary, where their leaders, the Three Kismet, awaited him.
“But...I do not wish to see...my family suffer any more.”
He did not know what he would ascend to...or descend rather. What would the total subsumption of a being as powerful as Aphosis do to him? Though trepidation gnawed, the fear of the unknown would not deter him. For what he had seen, what he knew for certain, was that if Aphosis gained control again, everything...and everyone he loved would be in grave danger. And Edo would be under the thumb of an immortal that cared nothing for the lives under its dogma. The Wingless One could not become the Stellar Supreme.
And if shedding the final dregs of his humanity was the cost he had to pay to see Edo's future sky emboldened with stars rather than weapons, then it was a cost he would no longer hesitate to pay. The weight of his single mortal life did not outweigh the love that lingered for his clan. However much they may hate him, however much they loathe him, he loved them and would give anything to ensure they prospered...that they were free.
Before his hand could touch the handle, the giant doors opened with a groan, revealing not a chamber, but an abyss. As he stepped inside, he was swallowed by a thick darkness so absolute that even his advanced sight, augmented by nanites and Ophidian’s essence, could not penetrate it. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of dried blood, ancient dust, and something undeniably magical, a raw, potent energy that vibrated in his very teeth.
Only after the door closed with a deafening thud did a single orb of ethereal flame manifest in the suffocating black. It then split into two other identical motes, for a total of three. Spectral hands slithered over the lights, snuffing them out one by one, and from this chilling act, the chambers became illuminated. Not with firelight, but with a cold, pale glow that seemed to emanate from the very stone, revealing the Kismet. Their hair was the color of aquamarine, streaked with thick shades of black, and their lips, painted a deep, almost purple hue, were set in knowing smiles. Runic tattoos scrawled across their skin, ancient glyphs writhing like living things under the pale light. Each of the three sisters held something in their hands.
Xelpha, the youngest sister, her gaze sharp and predatory, held a jagged knife, something like a ritual dagger, its edge gleaming dully despite the dimness. Xenon, the middle sister, a mischievous glint in her eyes, held a bowl, chipped, blackened, and well-used, its surface stained with what could only be dried blood. Xeria, the Eldest, her presence radiating an ancient authority, held the Sanguine Archive, also known as the Book of Blood. It was the grimoire of their mystic blood and sealing magics, the tome from which all personal copies of the Bingo Knights' bounty hunter book were derived.
"The Kinslayer returns, and with our three boon no less," Xeria's voice was a dry whisper, like rustling parchment, yet it resonated with immense power.
"Such a capable lap dog, my, you would've made for a fine Bingo Knight," Xennon mused, a cruel smile playing on her lips.
"Yes indeed, if not for your head fetching the highest price, we might've considered it," Xelpha purred, twirling her dagger with practiced ease.
"Please, spare me your taunts," Kinslayer rebutted, his voice stern, an artificial calm masking the turmoil within. "I have done as you've asked."
"Yes, that much we can tell; we surveyed you through Scrying magic, you use that augmented body well," Xeria acknowledged, her ancient eyes piercing through him. "I can smell the stain of the Ziocorns' death upon you."
"Heartless creature, to slay something so innocent. Did you feel nothing?" Xelpha taunted, her voice a poisonous caress.
"The Ritual... You have your material now; let's get on with it," Kinslayer demanded, his patience wearing thin, flashes of the creature's last breath replaying in his mind.
"Oh, you heard that, sisters? It wishes for us to hurry along," Xennon cackled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across stone.
"Patient boy, what you ask us to do is no simple task," Xeria murmured, her tone suddenly devoid of amusement. "You barely know anything about the deity you seek to bind... You have seen but a spark of its divinity. You call it the Nether Serpent, but it is far more. It is a fae unlike any you have ever seen, a cosmic force that has never known slumber and yet, dreamt into existence long before the first star kindled in Edo's skies."
She paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air, the true, terrifying scope of his endeavor blossoming in his mind. The nanites in his body hummed faster, an instinctive tremor of fear or anticipation.
"We are about to grant you its wellspring; the least you could do is humor us," Xeria concluded, her gaze unwavering.
"Fine..." Kinslayer conceded, stepping forward. He approached the center of the room, where a lone dais, forged from arbor and ash, stood before him. As he neared, the pouch containing the reagents he had gathered — the Ziocorn's essence, the Nihlea Crow's feather, and the spine of the Dinagorge — floated from his hands to Xeria's, shimmering with a faint, otherworldly glow.
He stood upon the dais, the arbor and ash cool beneath his feet, the air crackling with nascent power. The Kismet formed a triangle around him, their runic tattoos glowing faintly, their voices beginning a low, guttural chant that vibrated through the very marrow of his bones. Xelpha raised her dagger, Xenon lifted her chipped bowl, and Xeria opened the Sanguine Archive, its blood-red pages filled with writhing script.
The whispers of his mother, the distant phantom of her touch, clung to him. The cold logic of his mind screamed for him to resist, to flee, to preserve the last, precious sliver of humanity. But his heart, that stubborn, mortal drum, beat a different rhythm. It pulsed with the fierce, unwavering love for his clan. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the encroaching darkness. He would become a monster, a god, a tool – whatever was necessary.
For them.
Always for them.
After his reflection at the Oasis centered within the Komodo plains, Kin found himself back within the welcoming walls of Dunlao, the City of Commerce. The air reverberated with the usual hum of busy nightlife, a symphony of commerce and vice. Below, the Low Markets still sprawled, even in the late hours, a labyrinth of stalls where the scent of roasted meats mingled with expensive oils and the sharp, metallic tang of high-stakes energy trading. He could almost hear the bartering for esquist naten-infused fabrics that shimmered like liquid moonlight, even from this height. Further up, the Entertainment District pulsed with a different kind of energy, a shimmering sprawl of tea houses and gambling dens where rival generals, who would seek each other’s heads on a battlefield, shared sake.
Kin, however, could be seen trekking up the winding Crystaline Spire, where the administrative district sat, a stark contrast of white stone and crystal that regulated the flow of wealth, ensuring that while the rest of Edo burned, Dunlao prospered. Masked once more. Upon the very tip of the economic spire was the Kismet. Those cunning witches, despite their youthful appearance, reeked of magic equally as old as the Nether Serpent itself, with power and knowledge to match. He didn't need to take the stairs; flight, teleportation, velocity manipulation, and dozens of other ways to move through and around the world itself were at his command. Yet he took this scenic route for a purpose.
To walk the world, slowly, as men do one final time.
As he was now, he was a far cry from what one would consider human. His body was the host of hundreds of thousands of tiny AIONS, a black tide that repaired and augmented. Ophidian had become intertwined with his very marrow, a deep, resonant hum that vibrated through every bone. If not for the Shi's natural accelerated regeneration and the added regenerative powers of the nanites themselves, he would have succumbed to metal poisoning ages ago.
His body hummed as a machine does, his bio-electrical pulse thrummed deeper than a normal man's, his mind coldly logical, analytical to the last letter, and yet. Despite all the things he had done, the acts of both kindness and damnation he had enacted, the beating, rhythmic pounding of his heart remained human, mortal.
Memories of his mother, ones he had tried to suppress, resurfaced. What it was like to hold her weighted, tired form in his hands. The fleeting joy he’d crafted for them to experience in her final moments was the far hope of a life he accepted could never be. Their happiness was stolen from them by the insidious oppression of the Owaki and Yaarou clans.
"Mother...forgive me...please..." he whispered on the fading currents of wind caressing his short black hair. "I'm sorry...I couldn't be the son you deserved...." He saw once more the pain in her eyes, reflected in the polished obsidian steps, even as he walked past the guard to the Midlight Bedlam's sanctuary, where their leaders, the Three Kismet, awaited him.
“But...I do not wish to see...my family suffer any more.”
He did not know what he would ascend to...or descend rather. What would the total subsumption of a being as powerful as Aphosis do to him? Though trepidation gnawed, the fear of the unknown would not deter him. For what he had seen, what he knew for certain, was that if Aphosis gained control again, everything...and everyone he loved would be in grave danger. And Edo would be under the thumb of an immortal that cared nothing for the lives under its dogma. The Wingless One could not become the Stellar Supreme.
And if shedding the final dregs of his humanity was the cost he had to pay to see Edo's future sky emboldened with stars rather than weapons, then it was a cost he would no longer hesitate to pay. The weight of his single mortal life did not outweigh the love that lingered for his clan. However much they may hate him, however much they loathe him, he loved them and would give anything to ensure they prospered...that they were free.
Before his hand could touch the handle, the giant doors opened with a groan, revealing not a chamber, but an abyss. As he stepped inside, he was swallowed by a thick darkness so absolute that even his advanced sight, augmented by nanites and Ophidian’s essence, could not penetrate it. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of dried blood, ancient dust, and something undeniably magical, a raw, potent energy that vibrated in his very teeth.
Only after the door closed with a deafening thud did a single orb of ethereal flame manifest in the suffocating black. It then split into two other identical motes, for a total of three. Spectral hands slithered over the lights, snuffing them out one by one, and from this chilling act, the chambers became illuminated. Not with firelight, but with a cold, pale glow that seemed to emanate from the very stone, revealing the Kismet. Their hair was the color of aquamarine, streaked with thick shades of black, and their lips, painted a deep, almost purple hue, were set in knowing smiles. Runic tattoos scrawled across their skin, ancient glyphs writhing like living things under the pale light. Each of the three sisters held something in their hands.
Xelpha, the youngest sister, her gaze sharp and predatory, held a jagged knife, something like a ritual dagger, its edge gleaming dully despite the dimness. Xenon, the middle sister, a mischievous glint in her eyes, held a bowl, chipped, blackened, and well-used, its surface stained with what could only be dried blood. Xeria, the Eldest, her presence radiating an ancient authority, held the Sanguine Archive, also known as the Book of Blood. It was the grimoire of their mystic blood and sealing magics, the tome from which all personal copies of the Bingo Knights' bounty hunter book were derived.
"The Kinslayer returns, and with our three boon no less," Xeria's voice was a dry whisper, like rustling parchment, yet it resonated with immense power.
"Such a capable lap dog, my, you would've made for a fine Bingo Knight," Xennon mused, a cruel smile playing on her lips.
"Yes indeed, if not for your head fetching the highest price, we might've considered it," Xelpha purred, twirling her dagger with practiced ease.
"Please, spare me your taunts," Kinslayer rebutted, his voice stern, an artificial calm masking the turmoil within. "I have done as you've asked."
"Yes, that much we can tell; we surveyed you through Scrying magic, you use that augmented body well," Xeria acknowledged, her ancient eyes piercing through him. "I can smell the stain of the Ziocorns' death upon you."
"Heartless creature, to slay something so innocent. Did you feel nothing?" Xelpha taunted, her voice a poisonous caress.
"The Ritual... You have your material now; let's get on with it," Kinslayer demanded, his patience wearing thin, flashes of the creature's last breath replaying in his mind.
"Oh, you heard that, sisters? It wishes for us to hurry along," Xennon cackled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across stone.
"Patient boy, what you ask us to do is no simple task," Xeria murmured, her tone suddenly devoid of amusement. "You barely know anything about the deity you seek to bind... You have seen but a spark of its divinity. You call it the Nether Serpent, but it is far more. It is a fae unlike any you have ever seen, a cosmic force that has never known slumber and yet, dreamt into existence long before the first star kindled in Edo's skies."
She paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air, the true, terrifying scope of his endeavor blossoming in his mind. The nanites in his body hummed faster, an instinctive tremor of fear or anticipation.
"We are about to grant you its wellspring; the least you could do is humor us," Xeria concluded, her gaze unwavering.
"Fine..." Kinslayer conceded, stepping forward. He approached the center of the room, where a lone dais, forged from arbor and ash, stood before him. As he neared, the pouch containing the reagents he had gathered — the Ziocorn's essence, the Nihlea Crow's feather, and the spine of the Dinagorge — floated from his hands to Xeria's, shimmering with a faint, otherworldly glow.
He stood upon the dais, the arbor and ash cool beneath his feet, the air crackling with nascent power. The Kismet formed a triangle around him, their runic tattoos glowing faintly, their voices beginning a low, guttural chant that vibrated through the very marrow of his bones. Xelpha raised her dagger, Xenon lifted her chipped bowl, and Xeria opened the Sanguine Archive, its blood-red pages filled with writhing script.
The whispers of his mother, the distant phantom of her touch, clung to him. The cold logic of his mind screamed for him to resist, to flee, to preserve the last, precious sliver of humanity. But his heart, that stubborn, mortal drum, beat a different rhythm. It pulsed with the fierce, unwavering love for his clan. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the encroaching darkness. He would become a monster, a god, a tool – whatever was necessary.
For them.
Always for them.
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
The air in the obsidian chamber hung heavy, thick enough to taste like rust and ancient dust. Luminescent sigils, burned themselves into the very bones of the sanctuary by hands that should have turned to ash long ago, pulsed with a dull, crimson glow, casting dancing shadows that stretched and warped the already alien figures within. Kinslayer stood at the heart of their confluence, shoulders rigid, hands clenched at his sides. The curse in his blood hummed a frantic, desperate harmony, a discordant symphony against the insidious whispers that crawled like icy worms through the marrow of his bones. Aphosis stirred within him, a nascent god chafing at its confines as if he knew what was coming.
The three members of the Kismet triangulated around him, ancient and inscrutable. Xeria, the eldest, stern and unyielding as mountain stone, held aloft the Sanguine Archive – a tome bound in what appeared to be fossilized sinew, its pages rippling with a dark, living energy.
"To forge an impregnable seal, to bind it as it were, you must first understand its nature," she stated, her voice echoing with a weight that seemed to press physically against the walls.
Xenon, his form leaning with casual indifference against a jagged pillar of quartz, let out a dry, rattling breath. "But how can one comprehend the nature of a god?"
Xeria laughed, a sharp, melodic sound that lacked any real mirth. "Ha... Gods. Titles snatched by every upstart lord who grabbed a sliver of power." She turned her imperious gaze to the third figure, Xelpha, who was tracing the honed edge of a ritual dagger with a thumb that did not bleed.
"Yet Aphosis is not a bearer of an empty title. Its very nature, its evolution, is embroidered with true divinity," Xelpha said, her large, luminous eyes fixing on Kinslayer. "Tell us, scion of a forgotten oath, what do you know of the Fae?"
Kinslayer’s jaw tightened. He could feel the entity within him recoil at the question, a serpent sensing a revealed weakness. He could not deny that a litany of his failures, the shattered ruins of his clan's honor, were built upon the foundation of this ignorance. He knew its history and influence as far as the early institutions of his bloodline were concerned. But nothing of its origin before. "Little," he grunted, the word strained. "Aside from the fact that they are a species born from esoteric means."
"Ah, yes... Esoteric indeed," Xeria murmured, beginning a slow, predatory circle around him. "They are living notions, Kinslayer. Physical manifestations of the universe's various ebbs. They are what happens when an idea gains enough mass to develop a heartbeat."
"You seek to bind a living force, a sentient energy," Xeria's voice resonated, rich with the weight of aeons, "but you treat it like a common parasite. A sickness to be purged. Do you even know the pedigree of the shadow in your marrow?"
"It is a being of miraculous conception," Xelpha stated, her tone flat and factual, as Xeria motioned for her to continue.
Xeria's fingers danced through the thick air, and the Sanctum unfolded around them. A vision blossomed in the oppressive dark. A storm of black flame and molten ice spiraled through the void, a mindless maw consuming nebulae, devouring suns. There was no thought, no intent. Only a pure, terrifying hunger.
"It wasn't a living thing then," Xenon continued, his voice a dry whisper that somehow cut through the vision. "Just a ferocious, mindless storm rampaging through the heavens. But when it reached the Milky Way, it choked down the essence, the naten, of two celestial titans who slumbered there: Ion, the First Light, and Mavro, the Last Shadow."
The vision shuddered, convulsing.
Where there had been only chaos, a terrifying awareness sprouted. The storm writhed, its form coalescing. Two heads burst from its core—one wreathed in captured stormfire, the other in devoured, frozen void. Eyes of cosmic fire and abyssal ice opened for the first time.
"But even a storm can be tamed," Xelpha purred, her dagger now tracing a slow, hypnotic arc in the air. "Our mother, Vescrutia, caught it in her gravitational embrace. For eons, that storm was held captive, fed a steady diet of the planet’s lifeblood until it stretched out, taking the form of the Ouroboros Cluster—a two-headed serpent of cosmic scale."
"Another head?" Kin asked, his voice barely a whisper. His Dankestu eyes, usually a calm, obsidian void, pulsed with an internal, violent light, reflecting the growing chaos within.
"Curious are we?" Xeria intoned, flipping a page in the Sanguine Archive with a sound like tearing flesh. "Those two heads, Aphosis and its twin Zincara, watched this world from their crystalline cage. Aphosis saw how a lump of coal becomes a diamond only under crushing pressure; it decided that chaos and hardship were the only forge that made life worthy of survival. And so it chose to intertwine with the Shinobi world...with your ancestor, Tero. Zincara saw the opposite—how life flourished in the quiet, fertile aftermath of a storm—and chose the path of harmony and spirit; it bound itself to the Shaman and their spiritual tethers."
"And now," Xenon said, a hint of dark, scholarly fascination in his tone, "you're asking us to perform a cosmic lobotomy. To erase the 'Chaos' and leave only the power. You wish to turn a philosopher of destruction into a mindless battery. A profound waste, if you ask me."
Kin’s restraint shattered. “Whatever piece of Aphosis that once cared for this world’s preservation died long ago!” he snarled, the veins in his neck cording. “This curse has become a millstone around my clan’s neck, a reason for us to grovel before the Edo Warlords for scraps of dignity! It lies, it connives, it plots. It offers you your heart’s deepest wish only to sift through your darkness and take root in it. It takes love and molds it into a weapon. It… cares for nothing other than its own propagation.”
Kin’s eyes shone with a fervent, desperate light, like the twin fangs of a viper poised to strike.
“I don’t want its philosophy. I want its silence. I want its power, purified of its will.”
Xeria’s gaze, ancient and weary, sharpened to match his. For the first time since he had stumbled into their esoteric domain, the Kismet heard his words with something deeper than academic interest or morbid jest. Perhaps it was respect. Perhaps it was the recollection of a memory they did not expect this broken man to touch.
“Then you do not ask for a mere binding,” Xeria said, her voice dropping to a solemn, gravelled tone. “You ask for the Ritual of Devouring. To not merely shackle the god… but to consume it. To become it.”
The Kinslayer stilled. The frantic hum in his blood seemed to pause, listening.
They had never told him this was possible.
“To strip away the twin consciousness,” Xelpha breathed, a flicker of awe in her alien eyes, “and merge your soul with the Sovereign Plane—the demi-realm where Aphosis stores its core and the screaming amalgam of all the souls it has ever devoured. Then, you don’t kill it. You inherit it. Unify it.”
Xenon grinned, a flash of stark white in the crimson gloom. “And commit the ultimate heresy: become the very god you sought to destroy.”
His chest thumped, a heavy, mortal drumbeat against the silent, waiting presence inside him. The path before him was no longer a desperate gambit; it was a precipice. To fall was to be obliterated. To succeed was to lose himself in an entirely different way. But the ghosts of his clan demanded an answer. The weight of their grovailing centuries demanded a reckoning.
He looked at the three ancient beings, his voice dropping to a low, steady register that brooked no argument, no fear.
"I am ready."
The three members of the Kismet triangulated around him, ancient and inscrutable. Xeria, the eldest, stern and unyielding as mountain stone, held aloft the Sanguine Archive – a tome bound in what appeared to be fossilized sinew, its pages rippling with a dark, living energy.
"To forge an impregnable seal, to bind it as it were, you must first understand its nature," she stated, her voice echoing with a weight that seemed to press physically against the walls.
Xenon, his form leaning with casual indifference against a jagged pillar of quartz, let out a dry, rattling breath. "But how can one comprehend the nature of a god?"
Xeria laughed, a sharp, melodic sound that lacked any real mirth. "Ha... Gods. Titles snatched by every upstart lord who grabbed a sliver of power." She turned her imperious gaze to the third figure, Xelpha, who was tracing the honed edge of a ritual dagger with a thumb that did not bleed.
"Yet Aphosis is not a bearer of an empty title. Its very nature, its evolution, is embroidered with true divinity," Xelpha said, her large, luminous eyes fixing on Kinslayer. "Tell us, scion of a forgotten oath, what do you know of the Fae?"
Kinslayer’s jaw tightened. He could feel the entity within him recoil at the question, a serpent sensing a revealed weakness. He could not deny that a litany of his failures, the shattered ruins of his clan's honor, were built upon the foundation of this ignorance. He knew its history and influence as far as the early institutions of his bloodline were concerned. But nothing of its origin before. "Little," he grunted, the word strained. "Aside from the fact that they are a species born from esoteric means."
"Ah, yes... Esoteric indeed," Xeria murmured, beginning a slow, predatory circle around him. "They are living notions, Kinslayer. Physical manifestations of the universe's various ebbs. They are what happens when an idea gains enough mass to develop a heartbeat."
"You seek to bind a living force, a sentient energy," Xeria's voice resonated, rich with the weight of aeons, "but you treat it like a common parasite. A sickness to be purged. Do you even know the pedigree of the shadow in your marrow?"
"It is a being of miraculous conception," Xelpha stated, her tone flat and factual, as Xeria motioned for her to continue.
Xeria's fingers danced through the thick air, and the Sanctum unfolded around them. A vision blossomed in the oppressive dark. A storm of black flame and molten ice spiraled through the void, a mindless maw consuming nebulae, devouring suns. There was no thought, no intent. Only a pure, terrifying hunger.
"It wasn't a living thing then," Xenon continued, his voice a dry whisper that somehow cut through the vision. "Just a ferocious, mindless storm rampaging through the heavens. But when it reached the Milky Way, it choked down the essence, the naten, of two celestial titans who slumbered there: Ion, the First Light, and Mavro, the Last Shadow."
The vision shuddered, convulsing.
Where there had been only chaos, a terrifying awareness sprouted. The storm writhed, its form coalescing. Two heads burst from its core—one wreathed in captured stormfire, the other in devoured, frozen void. Eyes of cosmic fire and abyssal ice opened for the first time.
"But even a storm can be tamed," Xelpha purred, her dagger now tracing a slow, hypnotic arc in the air. "Our mother, Vescrutia, caught it in her gravitational embrace. For eons, that storm was held captive, fed a steady diet of the planet’s lifeblood until it stretched out, taking the form of the Ouroboros Cluster—a two-headed serpent of cosmic scale."
"Another head?" Kin asked, his voice barely a whisper. His Dankestu eyes, usually a calm, obsidian void, pulsed with an internal, violent light, reflecting the growing chaos within.
"Curious are we?" Xeria intoned, flipping a page in the Sanguine Archive with a sound like tearing flesh. "Those two heads, Aphosis and its twin Zincara, watched this world from their crystalline cage. Aphosis saw how a lump of coal becomes a diamond only under crushing pressure; it decided that chaos and hardship were the only forge that made life worthy of survival. And so it chose to intertwine with the Shinobi world...with your ancestor, Tero. Zincara saw the opposite—how life flourished in the quiet, fertile aftermath of a storm—and chose the path of harmony and spirit; it bound itself to the Shaman and their spiritual tethers."
"And now," Xenon said, a hint of dark, scholarly fascination in his tone, "you're asking us to perform a cosmic lobotomy. To erase the 'Chaos' and leave only the power. You wish to turn a philosopher of destruction into a mindless battery. A profound waste, if you ask me."
Kin’s restraint shattered. “Whatever piece of Aphosis that once cared for this world’s preservation died long ago!” he snarled, the veins in his neck cording. “This curse has become a millstone around my clan’s neck, a reason for us to grovel before the Edo Warlords for scraps of dignity! It lies, it connives, it plots. It offers you your heart’s deepest wish only to sift through your darkness and take root in it. It takes love and molds it into a weapon. It… cares for nothing other than its own propagation.”
Kin’s eyes shone with a fervent, desperate light, like the twin fangs of a viper poised to strike.
“I don’t want its philosophy. I want its silence. I want its power, purified of its will.”
Xeria’s gaze, ancient and weary, sharpened to match his. For the first time since he had stumbled into their esoteric domain, the Kismet heard his words with something deeper than academic interest or morbid jest. Perhaps it was respect. Perhaps it was the recollection of a memory they did not expect this broken man to touch.
“Then you do not ask for a mere binding,” Xeria said, her voice dropping to a solemn, gravelled tone. “You ask for the Ritual of Devouring. To not merely shackle the god… but to consume it. To become it.”
The Kinslayer stilled. The frantic hum in his blood seemed to pause, listening.
They had never told him this was possible.
“To strip away the twin consciousness,” Xelpha breathed, a flicker of awe in her alien eyes, “and merge your soul with the Sovereign Plane—the demi-realm where Aphosis stores its core and the screaming amalgam of all the souls it has ever devoured. Then, you don’t kill it. You inherit it. Unify it.”
Xenon grinned, a flash of stark white in the crimson gloom. “And commit the ultimate heresy: become the very god you sought to destroy.”
His chest thumped, a heavy, mortal drumbeat against the silent, waiting presence inside him. The path before him was no longer a desperate gambit; it was a precipice. To fall was to be obliterated. To succeed was to lose himself in an entirely different way. But the ghosts of his clan demanded an answer. The weight of their grovailing centuries demanded a reckoning.
He looked at the three ancient beings, his voice dropping to a low, steady register that brooked no argument, no fear.
"I am ready."
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
"The ritual begins."
Xeria's voice cut through the suffocating dark like a blade forged from silence. She raised the Sanguine Archive, its leather-bound spine pulsing with veins of dried blood older than memory. Around Kinslayer, the sanctum’s obsidian walls wept shadows as if reality itself recoiled. The air first chilled—so cold it cracked the stone beneath his bare feet—then erupted into searing heat, as though the chamber had plunged into the heart of a dying star.
Crimson sigils, carved into the floor with the ashes of dead prophets, flared to life. They pulsed in time with Kinslayer’s heartbeat—erratic, panicked—a drumbeat leading him toward the edge of existence.
"We shall peel away the sentience of the serpent," Xeria intoned, her voice layered with the echoes of a thousand forgotten war chants. "We shall drown the philosophy of the diamond and leave you with the raw, silent strength of the stars. Stand still, Kinslayer. If your resolve wavers for even a second, the Chaos won’t just inhabit you—it will hollow you out."
The words were a decree. A death warrant signed in blood not yet spilled.
Kinslayer braced. His breath shallow. His body trembling—not from fear, but from the war already raging within.
The Sanguine Archive flared. A pulse of raw, unshaped magic erupted from its pages—a wave of crimson force that split the air like thunder. From the glowing sigils on the floor, chains of liquid light erupted, lashing around Kinslayer’s wrists and ankles. They seared into his flesh, binding him not just to the chamber, but to the very bedrock of the world, anchoring his soul as the ritual demanded.
Xeria began the Tongue of the First War—a language that cracked reality. Each syllable split the air, sent shivers through the heavens. Xenon, her fingers slit open with her own dagger, painted runes into the floor with her blood—prisons for thought, cages for memory. Each sigil pulsed like a dying heart.
And Xelpha—silent, smiling—stood behind Kinslayer, her obsidian dagger poised above his spine.
"You must die, Kinslayer," she whispered, her breath warm against his neck. "To outlive the god within you."
Then—she struck.
The dagger plunged deep—through flesh, through bone, through the veil of the soul—and pierced his heart.
Kinslayer convulsed.
The world inverted.
His body became a battlefield.
Beneath his skin, veins blackened and writhed like serpents, swelling as Aphosis—the Nether Serpent, the Eater of Stars—raged against the bindings. The god within him was not dormant. It was awake, and it would not be unmade.
Inside his mind, Aphosis manifested as a psychic serpent, vast and ancient, coiled around the roots of his consciousness. Its eyes were voids, galaxies collapsing in their depths. It spoke without sound, its voice the weight of a collapsing universe.
"You dare?"
The Serpent spoke
"I moved you to war.... I opened the void in your eyes. I made you strong."
Visions flooded Kinslayer—futures where he knelt before empires in ashes, where he wore crowns of shattered moons, where he ruled as the Stellar Supreme, the embodiment of inevitable destruction. Power beyond measure. Freedom through annihilation.
"You owe me," Aphosis snarled. "You were nothing—cursed, blind, unwanted—until I made you whole."
But Kinslayer gritted his teeth.
"You gave me a life of darkness. Of isolation, solitude. Feared by the very clan I am here today to save. You made me kill my grandfather," he gasped, blood bubbling at his lips. "The only person to love me without condition. You...took my mother from me. This curse...taken everything from us." His voice cracked. "But you are right. I should thank you."
He lifted his chin.
"For becoming the greatest meal I will ever savor."
At that moment, the Profane Rite reached its apex.
The Sanguine Archive erupted in a storm of forgotten oaths—cries of clans sacrificed, blood spilled to bind the serpent across eons. From its pages, rivers of liquid history poured, forming chains of solidified memory, each link forged from the blood of martyrs.
Xeria, Xenon, Xelpha—the Kismet Sisters—stepped forward. Their bodies dissolved.
Not into death.
Into will.
Their forms shimmered—flesh melting into light, then into essence—until they were no longer women, but avatars of purpose, stepping into the vortex that now tore open from Kinslayer’s chest. A maw of shadow and starlight.
The Sovereign Plane.
The inner realm—the true sanctum of Aphosis’s soul, a demiplane where time bent like reeds in a storm. Here, the serpent was not a symbol. It was cosmic, a being of pure, devouring will. A dragon of collapsing nebulae, its scales forged from dead stars, coiled around the axis of its own universe.
And Zincara was not here.
No harmony. No balance. Only Aphosis, pure and untempered, the philosophy of chaos incarnate.
The Kismet appeared before it—ethereal, radiant.
"You have grown too ambitious, Wingless One," Xeria said, her voice echoing across the void. "We stopped your first usurpation. We warned you—attempt it again, and we would unmake you."
"Fools," the serpent roared through gravity itself. "I have devoured gods. I birthed wars that scorched reality. You are insects clinging to the back of eternity!"
Xelpha began to sing—a melody older than sound, a hymn of soul-fission. With each note, she wove glyphs of solidified starlight, wrapping them around the serpent’s form.
Xenon cut into the fabric of memory with her blood-knife, severing threads of identity, of ego, of desire—each cut a murder of the mind.
Xeria spoke the Elegy of Unbecoming, words that unraveled existence:
"Let no echo remain,
Let no shadow recall its name,
Let the eater be eaten,
And the devourer claim the flame."
Aphosis thrashed. Cosmic fire lashed out, scorching the Kismet, burning through their ethereal forms. But they held.
Because Kinslayer stood behind them.
His soul emerged into the Sovereign Plane—not as a prisoner, but as a conqueror.
He opened his eyes.
The Dankestu—Mugen.
Violet light—darkness made manifest—lanced across the realm, striking Aphosis in its chaotic core.
Normally, the Dankestu could not harm the serpent. It was the source of the curse, the origin of the power. But Kinslayer was no mere user.
He was kin.
He was host.
He was heir.
And now—he was sovereign.
The strike was not physical. It was symbolic—an act of will so absolute, so unshakable, that even the Nether Serpent could not resist.
The serpent shrieked.
Memories exploded—the Sun Eater Squall, the devouring of nebulae, the taste of dying stars. The moment the naten—the primal darkness—was first consumed, light and dark warring in its core.
But the Kismet did not falter.
Xenon severed the last tether of thought.
Xelpha wove the fragments into a cocoon around Kinslayer’s soul.
Xeria spoke the final word: "Unbecome."
The head of Aphosis exploded—not in fury, but in silence, a storm of dying light collapsing inward. Its power—raw, unfiltered, cosmic—poured into the void.
And Kinslayer reached out—not with his hand, but with will.
The Sovereign Plane bent.
Then folded.
Then merged.
It collapsed into him, not as a force, but as flesh—a living, breathing extension of his soul. It grafted to him like a second skin of starlight and shadow, a skeletal armor forged from the corpse of a god. His AIONS had been changed forever, evolved to a state that exceeded their original programming.
When he returned to the sanctum, the chamber was ruined.
The Kismet knelt, their masks of mirth shattered, blood pooling into the final runes of the ritual.
Kinslayer stood over them.
Not as supplicant.
Not as weapon.
But as Sovereign of Self.
Xeria looked up, her third eye weeping blood.
In his gaze—once violet—now swirled entire galaxies. When he blinked, stars died in his pupils.
"It is done," he said. His voice was many—his own, and the echo of a serpent, and the silence between realms.
Aphosis was gone.
Not destroyed.
Consumed.
Not replaced.
Become.
The god no longer lived.
But Kinslayer did
And in the darkness beyond the broken sanctum, something new began to stir.
Xeria's voice cut through the suffocating dark like a blade forged from silence. She raised the Sanguine Archive, its leather-bound spine pulsing with veins of dried blood older than memory. Around Kinslayer, the sanctum’s obsidian walls wept shadows as if reality itself recoiled. The air first chilled—so cold it cracked the stone beneath his bare feet—then erupted into searing heat, as though the chamber had plunged into the heart of a dying star.
Crimson sigils, carved into the floor with the ashes of dead prophets, flared to life. They pulsed in time with Kinslayer’s heartbeat—erratic, panicked—a drumbeat leading him toward the edge of existence.
"We shall peel away the sentience of the serpent," Xeria intoned, her voice layered with the echoes of a thousand forgotten war chants. "We shall drown the philosophy of the diamond and leave you with the raw, silent strength of the stars. Stand still, Kinslayer. If your resolve wavers for even a second, the Chaos won’t just inhabit you—it will hollow you out."
The words were a decree. A death warrant signed in blood not yet spilled.
Kinslayer braced. His breath shallow. His body trembling—not from fear, but from the war already raging within.
The Sanguine Archive flared. A pulse of raw, unshaped magic erupted from its pages—a wave of crimson force that split the air like thunder. From the glowing sigils on the floor, chains of liquid light erupted, lashing around Kinslayer’s wrists and ankles. They seared into his flesh, binding him not just to the chamber, but to the very bedrock of the world, anchoring his soul as the ritual demanded.
Xeria began the Tongue of the First War—a language that cracked reality. Each syllable split the air, sent shivers through the heavens. Xenon, her fingers slit open with her own dagger, painted runes into the floor with her blood—prisons for thought, cages for memory. Each sigil pulsed like a dying heart.
And Xelpha—silent, smiling—stood behind Kinslayer, her obsidian dagger poised above his spine.
"You must die, Kinslayer," she whispered, her breath warm against his neck. "To outlive the god within you."
Then—she struck.
The dagger plunged deep—through flesh, through bone, through the veil of the soul—and pierced his heart.
Kinslayer convulsed.
The world inverted.
His body became a battlefield.
Beneath his skin, veins blackened and writhed like serpents, swelling as Aphosis—the Nether Serpent, the Eater of Stars—raged against the bindings. The god within him was not dormant. It was awake, and it would not be unmade.
Inside his mind, Aphosis manifested as a psychic serpent, vast and ancient, coiled around the roots of his consciousness. Its eyes were voids, galaxies collapsing in their depths. It spoke without sound, its voice the weight of a collapsing universe.
"You dare?"
The Serpent spoke
"I moved you to war.... I opened the void in your eyes. I made you strong."
Visions flooded Kinslayer—futures where he knelt before empires in ashes, where he wore crowns of shattered moons, where he ruled as the Stellar Supreme, the embodiment of inevitable destruction. Power beyond measure. Freedom through annihilation.
"You owe me," Aphosis snarled. "You were nothing—cursed, blind, unwanted—until I made you whole."
But Kinslayer gritted his teeth.
"You gave me a life of darkness. Of isolation, solitude. Feared by the very clan I am here today to save. You made me kill my grandfather," he gasped, blood bubbling at his lips. "The only person to love me without condition. You...took my mother from me. This curse...taken everything from us." His voice cracked. "But you are right. I should thank you."
He lifted his chin.
"For becoming the greatest meal I will ever savor."
At that moment, the Profane Rite reached its apex.
The Sanguine Archive erupted in a storm of forgotten oaths—cries of clans sacrificed, blood spilled to bind the serpent across eons. From its pages, rivers of liquid history poured, forming chains of solidified memory, each link forged from the blood of martyrs.
Xeria, Xenon, Xelpha—the Kismet Sisters—stepped forward. Their bodies dissolved.
Not into death.
Into will.
Their forms shimmered—flesh melting into light, then into essence—until they were no longer women, but avatars of purpose, stepping into the vortex that now tore open from Kinslayer’s chest. A maw of shadow and starlight.
The Sovereign Plane.
The inner realm—the true sanctum of Aphosis’s soul, a demiplane where time bent like reeds in a storm. Here, the serpent was not a symbol. It was cosmic, a being of pure, devouring will. A dragon of collapsing nebulae, its scales forged from dead stars, coiled around the axis of its own universe.
And Zincara was not here.
No harmony. No balance. Only Aphosis, pure and untempered, the philosophy of chaos incarnate.
The Kismet appeared before it—ethereal, radiant.
"You have grown too ambitious, Wingless One," Xeria said, her voice echoing across the void. "We stopped your first usurpation. We warned you—attempt it again, and we would unmake you."
"Fools," the serpent roared through gravity itself. "I have devoured gods. I birthed wars that scorched reality. You are insects clinging to the back of eternity!"
Xelpha began to sing—a melody older than sound, a hymn of soul-fission. With each note, she wove glyphs of solidified starlight, wrapping them around the serpent’s form.
Xenon cut into the fabric of memory with her blood-knife, severing threads of identity, of ego, of desire—each cut a murder of the mind.
Xeria spoke the Elegy of Unbecoming, words that unraveled existence:
"Let no echo remain,
Let no shadow recall its name,
Let the eater be eaten,
And the devourer claim the flame."
Aphosis thrashed. Cosmic fire lashed out, scorching the Kismet, burning through their ethereal forms. But they held.
Because Kinslayer stood behind them.
His soul emerged into the Sovereign Plane—not as a prisoner, but as a conqueror.
He opened his eyes.
The Dankestu—Mugen.
Violet light—darkness made manifest—lanced across the realm, striking Aphosis in its chaotic core.
Normally, the Dankestu could not harm the serpent. It was the source of the curse, the origin of the power. But Kinslayer was no mere user.
He was kin.
He was host.
He was heir.
And now—he was sovereign.
The strike was not physical. It was symbolic—an act of will so absolute, so unshakable, that even the Nether Serpent could not resist.
The serpent shrieked.
Memories exploded—the Sun Eater Squall, the devouring of nebulae, the taste of dying stars. The moment the naten—the primal darkness—was first consumed, light and dark warring in its core.
But the Kismet did not falter.
Xenon severed the last tether of thought.
Xelpha wove the fragments into a cocoon around Kinslayer’s soul.
Xeria spoke the final word: "Unbecome."
The head of Aphosis exploded—not in fury, but in silence, a storm of dying light collapsing inward. Its power—raw, unfiltered, cosmic—poured into the void.
And Kinslayer reached out—not with his hand, but with will.
The Sovereign Plane bent.
Then folded.
Then merged.
It collapsed into him, not as a force, but as flesh—a living, breathing extension of his soul. It grafted to him like a second skin of starlight and shadow, a skeletal armor forged from the corpse of a god. His AIONS had been changed forever, evolved to a state that exceeded their original programming.
When he returned to the sanctum, the chamber was ruined.
The Kismet knelt, their masks of mirth shattered, blood pooling into the final runes of the ritual.
Kinslayer stood over them.
Not as supplicant.
Not as weapon.
But as Sovereign of Self.
Xeria looked up, her third eye weeping blood.
In his gaze—once violet—now swirled entire galaxies. When he blinked, stars died in his pupils.
"It is done," he said. His voice was many—his own, and the echo of a serpent, and the silence between realms.
Aphosis was gone.
Not destroyed.
Consumed.
Not replaced.
Become.
The god no longer lived.
But Kinslayer did
And in the darkness beyond the broken sanctum, something new began to stir.
Re: The Snake That Swallowed God
The last vestiges of the ritual’s energy dissipated like smoke in a high wind, leaving only a profound, humming silence in the heart of the Kismet’s sanctum. Kinslayer stood at the center of the intricate, fading glyphs, his gaze seemingly vacant, fixed on the palm of his hand. It was a deceptively calm pose. To an observer, he might have appeared aloof, even bored. The truth was a supernova contained within a vessel of flesh and bone.
His attention was sharper, more focused, than it had ever been. For the first time in his wretched, blood-soaked life, he felt that the very concept of ‘impossible’ had been scrubbed from the lexicon of the cosmos. This new state of being defied the common tongue. He felt vast, nearly infinite, a consciousness with no ceiling, yet paradoxically, he had never been more rooted in his own self. He was a nexus. The dark, coiling energies of the Sovereign Plane were no longer a separate, invasive force; they were the very weave of his molecular fibers. The hym in his veins was not blood but a swelling, primordial ebony. It was not the indiscriminate malice he associated with the Nether Serpent’s primal rage. This was subtler, grander—the resonant baritone of a cosmic aria, as if the stars themselves were sewn together with sable threads, and he was the loom.
His AIONS, the millions of nanoscopic machines that served as his lifeblood, chittered through him with an evolved, alien consciousness. Eridin and Hyperia, the architects of his original augmentation, could never have conceived of this. What flowed beneath his skin felt less like ichor and more like the pridomoal ooze of creation itself. He flexed his fingers, and the sensation was that he could, with a mere whim, compact stardust into a new world.
“This…” he murmured.
His voice, once a weapon of sharp edges and cold promise, had matured. It carried a silken tenor now, but beneath it thrummed a calm, reverberant authority, the sound of tectonic plates shifting deep within the earth.
His Dankestu, his supernatural perception, was the most miraculous evolution. Even from this sealed chamber atop the city's highest pinnacle, his awareness expanded outward, unfettered. He could see them. Hundreds of thousands of souls in the city below, each a distinct pinprick of light in the vast tapestry of existence. Each one a star he could, if he so desired, pluck from the heavens and extinguish. His very skeleton felt sculpted from the gravitational stuff that bound planets to their suns.
“Is Ophidan…” he breathed, understanding. It was the Serpent’s power, but repurposed, refined—an alloy grafted from the sinew of reforged nebulae. It was his.
“I…I have to see them,” he said, the words not meant for anyone but himself, a statement of intent to go and witness the world with these new, god-touched eyes.
“Wait, Kinslayer.”
The voice of Xeria halted him. He did not turn, but his will—a tangible, heavy thing now—constrained the immense pressure of his gaze from shattering the ancient chamber.
“There is but one final boon we would bequeath to you,” Xelpha interjected.
“One that will help you understand the role you play in this cosmic ordinance,” Xennon implied.
Kinslayer remained silent, a statue of contained potential.
Xeria continued, her voice echoing from no discernible location. “You have not merely been given Aphosis’s power. You have bonded with its domain, the root of its divinity. Because of this…”
“You now are the Nether Serpent itself,” Xelpha rebuttled, her tone sharp as a shard of obsidian. “And possess its hunger as well.”
“And as such, you have assumed its role in a story as old as the serpent itself,” Xennon said, her voice the gentlest, yet carrying the gravest weight. “A hunt just as ancient.”
“Zincara yet lives and has returned to Edo,” Xeria stated flatly.
“Bound to one who will soon merge with its Sovereign Plane, just as you have to Aphosis’s.”
Kinslayer finally turned his head, a minute movement that seemed to draw the light from the room. “Are you telling me I should be afraid?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Xeria demurred. “But do not dismiss the caution of this tale.”
“For you should know,” Xelpha teased, though the humor was absent, replaced by a cold, stark warning, “even we cannot weave a Fate against the Djynn of Order. It is the will of land and spirit, of Natural Order. And it will hunt you, drawn to you who now embody what has always been its singular directive.”
“To chase Chaos and Darkness…” Xennon whispered. “To you, Black Sun.”
“Beware the boy with eyes like burning silver,” Xennon admonished. “For in his gaze you will only find your ruin…”
Xeria added, the faintest hint of a sigh in her words, “Or perhaps… salvation.”
A low, dismissive sound rumbled in Kinslayer’s chest. “Hmp. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” The titles, the warnings, the cosmic hunts—they were abstractions. He had a lifetime of dealing with immediate, visceral threats. This felt no different. But the dismissal was a front. For he knew well the danger they spoke of. He had seen a glimpse of it himself when he first entered Dunlao. The Vision of a shimminer serpent, the first and only time he felt Aphosis's primal fear.
He turned to leave the sanctuary, the immense doors groaning open at his approach. It was then that a chime, soft yet insistent, echoed in his augmented mind. An emergency priority channel, cutting through the symphony of his new power. His semi-permanent, leisurely gaze, a mask of cool indifference, fractured. His eyes widened by a mere half-inch, a minute betrayal that spoke volumes of his surprise.
“It’s from…” he murmured, the name a ghost on his lips. “Eridin.”
He hesitated. Eridin, the current Head of the Shi clan. His clan. The clan from which he was estranged, a schism carved deeper than any canyon by his own hands—hands that had, under Aphosis’s control, slain his own grandfather, Yin. He hadn’t spoken to any of them in weeks, wallowing in a grief so profound it had curdled into a rage that fueled his quest for this very power.
The hesitation was short-lived. Eridin would not reach out. Not unless the world was ending.
He opened the channel. There was no visual, only Eridin’s voice, stripped of its usual aristocratic composure, raw with a horrifyingly human pain.
“Jao…The Yaarou. They hit the compound with everything. We… we were not prepared. The children… Yin’s students…” A ragged breath, the sound of a man breaking. “They slaughtered more than half our people.... They’re gone… just gone.”
The words hung in the air. The cosmic revelations of the Kismet, the warnings of ancient hunts, evaporated into meaningless noise. There was only this. This old, familiar hatred. This very personal, very intimate war.
The air in the corridor around Kinslayer grew heavy, thick with a pressure that made the stone walls groan. The light dimmed as if a great, unseen mass were drawing it in. Deep within him, the cosmic aria shifted its tune, the baritone harmony twisting into a single, razor-sharp chord of pure, undiluted vengeance.
His eyes, once merely intense, now glowed with the cold, ancient light of the Dankestu Mugen.
His voice, when he finally answered, was quiet. It was not the silken tenor of a moment before, nor the cold weapon of his past. It was the sound of absolute finality.
“Thank you, Eridin...I know, this couldn't have been easy for you.”
Shadows began to pool at his feet. Slowly, he began sinking into them.
"Worry not...I'll make sure they rue this day..."
He closed the channel as he faded into the murk of his shadow. The Kismet gazed at each other. They needed rest before reforging their Death Quill. Their duties as Edo's Arbitors fulfilled. Now, to observe once more how the war for Stellar Supreme would be waged in this era.
“It’s high time… I visit the Yaarou.”
His attention was sharper, more focused, than it had ever been. For the first time in his wretched, blood-soaked life, he felt that the very concept of ‘impossible’ had been scrubbed from the lexicon of the cosmos. This new state of being defied the common tongue. He felt vast, nearly infinite, a consciousness with no ceiling, yet paradoxically, he had never been more rooted in his own self. He was a nexus. The dark, coiling energies of the Sovereign Plane were no longer a separate, invasive force; they were the very weave of his molecular fibers. The hym in his veins was not blood but a swelling, primordial ebony. It was not the indiscriminate malice he associated with the Nether Serpent’s primal rage. This was subtler, grander—the resonant baritone of a cosmic aria, as if the stars themselves were sewn together with sable threads, and he was the loom.
His AIONS, the millions of nanoscopic machines that served as his lifeblood, chittered through him with an evolved, alien consciousness. Eridin and Hyperia, the architects of his original augmentation, could never have conceived of this. What flowed beneath his skin felt less like ichor and more like the pridomoal ooze of creation itself. He flexed his fingers, and the sensation was that he could, with a mere whim, compact stardust into a new world.
“This…” he murmured.
His voice, once a weapon of sharp edges and cold promise, had matured. It carried a silken tenor now, but beneath it thrummed a calm, reverberant authority, the sound of tectonic plates shifting deep within the earth.
His Dankestu, his supernatural perception, was the most miraculous evolution. Even from this sealed chamber atop the city's highest pinnacle, his awareness expanded outward, unfettered. He could see them. Hundreds of thousands of souls in the city below, each a distinct pinprick of light in the vast tapestry of existence. Each one a star he could, if he so desired, pluck from the heavens and extinguish. His very skeleton felt sculpted from the gravitational stuff that bound planets to their suns.
“Is Ophidan…” he breathed, understanding. It was the Serpent’s power, but repurposed, refined—an alloy grafted from the sinew of reforged nebulae. It was his.
“I…I have to see them,” he said, the words not meant for anyone but himself, a statement of intent to go and witness the world with these new, god-touched eyes.
“Wait, Kinslayer.”
The voice of Xeria halted him. He did not turn, but his will—a tangible, heavy thing now—constrained the immense pressure of his gaze from shattering the ancient chamber.
“There is but one final boon we would bequeath to you,” Xelpha interjected.
“One that will help you understand the role you play in this cosmic ordinance,” Xennon implied.
Kinslayer remained silent, a statue of contained potential.
Xeria continued, her voice echoing from no discernible location. “You have not merely been given Aphosis’s power. You have bonded with its domain, the root of its divinity. Because of this…”
“You now are the Nether Serpent itself,” Xelpha rebuttled, her tone sharp as a shard of obsidian. “And possess its hunger as well.”
“And as such, you have assumed its role in a story as old as the serpent itself,” Xennon said, her voice the gentlest, yet carrying the gravest weight. “A hunt just as ancient.”
“Zincara yet lives and has returned to Edo,” Xeria stated flatly.
“Bound to one who will soon merge with its Sovereign Plane, just as you have to Aphosis’s.”
Kinslayer finally turned his head, a minute movement that seemed to draw the light from the room. “Are you telling me I should be afraid?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Xeria demurred. “But do not dismiss the caution of this tale.”
“For you should know,” Xelpha teased, though the humor was absent, replaced by a cold, stark warning, “even we cannot weave a Fate against the Djynn of Order. It is the will of land and spirit, of Natural Order. And it will hunt you, drawn to you who now embody what has always been its singular directive.”
“To chase Chaos and Darkness…” Xennon whispered. “To you, Black Sun.”
“Beware the boy with eyes like burning silver,” Xennon admonished. “For in his gaze you will only find your ruin…”
Xeria added, the faintest hint of a sigh in her words, “Or perhaps… salvation.”
A low, dismissive sound rumbled in Kinslayer’s chest. “Hmp. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” The titles, the warnings, the cosmic hunts—they were abstractions. He had a lifetime of dealing with immediate, visceral threats. This felt no different. But the dismissal was a front. For he knew well the danger they spoke of. He had seen a glimpse of it himself when he first entered Dunlao. The Vision of a shimminer serpent, the first and only time he felt Aphosis's primal fear.
He turned to leave the sanctuary, the immense doors groaning open at his approach. It was then that a chime, soft yet insistent, echoed in his augmented mind. An emergency priority channel, cutting through the symphony of his new power. His semi-permanent, leisurely gaze, a mask of cool indifference, fractured. His eyes widened by a mere half-inch, a minute betrayal that spoke volumes of his surprise.
“It’s from…” he murmured, the name a ghost on his lips. “Eridin.”
He hesitated. Eridin, the current Head of the Shi clan. His clan. The clan from which he was estranged, a schism carved deeper than any canyon by his own hands—hands that had, under Aphosis’s control, slain his own grandfather, Yin. He hadn’t spoken to any of them in weeks, wallowing in a grief so profound it had curdled into a rage that fueled his quest for this very power.
The hesitation was short-lived. Eridin would not reach out. Not unless the world was ending.
He opened the channel. There was no visual, only Eridin’s voice, stripped of its usual aristocratic composure, raw with a horrifyingly human pain.
“Jao…The Yaarou. They hit the compound with everything. We… we were not prepared. The children… Yin’s students…” A ragged breath, the sound of a man breaking. “They slaughtered more than half our people.... They’re gone… just gone.”
The words hung in the air. The cosmic revelations of the Kismet, the warnings of ancient hunts, evaporated into meaningless noise. There was only this. This old, familiar hatred. This very personal, very intimate war.
The air in the corridor around Kinslayer grew heavy, thick with a pressure that made the stone walls groan. The light dimmed as if a great, unseen mass were drawing it in. Deep within him, the cosmic aria shifted its tune, the baritone harmony twisting into a single, razor-sharp chord of pure, undiluted vengeance.
His eyes, once merely intense, now glowed with the cold, ancient light of the Dankestu Mugen.
His voice, when he finally answered, was quiet. It was not the silken tenor of a moment before, nor the cold weapon of his past. It was the sound of absolute finality.
“Thank you, Eridin...I know, this couldn't have been easy for you.”
Shadows began to pool at his feet. Slowly, he began sinking into them.
"Worry not...I'll make sure they rue this day..."
He closed the channel as he faded into the murk of his shadow. The Kismet gazed at each other. They needed rest before reforging their Death Quill. Their duties as Edo's Arbitors fulfilled. Now, to observe once more how the war for Stellar Supreme would be waged in this era.
“It’s high time… I visit the Yaarou.”
The team