Integration is littered with clashes of godhood and faith. Pantheons face pantheons in battles of dominance, as gods with symmetrical Domains try to consume one another with the goal of finally reigning alone, for no two absolutes can exist at the same time. Such is the law that sees gods of like-minded worshippers and similar natures driven into conflict, for there is only so much room given to a single concept in the mind of a mortal.
Think now, how much of yourself could you devote to a dozen separate Gods of Nature, whose scriptures are divergent only on the barest of margins, not in any way significant or meaningful? How many of them should you worship?
The answer is one. Always one. Even if you play the moderate and spend part of the time praying to one or another, there is always one you favor. Bias is in our nature; it is one of our most fundamental sins.
As certain gods gain more power, they evolve, going from Demigods to True Gods and then, potentially, to the head of a new pantheon. From this, existing branches of Divinity are sundered and sheared as members shift along the bounds of power, and thus it goes unto the annals of eternity.
But there is a specific kind of war that is performed by two gods who have deemed one another anathema, or perhaps two whole pantheons that are diametrically and metaphysically opposed to each other.
This is a true war of the divine, a Holy War, for though others can claim this in the lower case, this is the capital case and the truest form. A Holy War is a war of annihilation, one idea against another, one Domain directly opposed to another, a dialectic that will see both shattered and broken in different ways, and when they emerge, should there be two that emerge, irrevocably changed.
Gods of Nature and Destruction might go to war against each other and, by the end, instead of killing one another, be fused together into the shape of a being of absolute rebirth. Or perhaps the God of Nature will consume Destruction and become a God of Calamities, a cleansing, destructive force that sweeps realms clean and sows the seeds of new life. Or perhaps it would be the other way around: Destruction wiping away the last bit of green on the world, yet revealing itself to be destruction of a most healing variety. The cauterization, the mending, the purging of cancers, plagues, and unchecked greenery.
Holy Wars are foundational. Holy Wars are fundamental. Holy Wars bring forth new tomes of scripture. For what follows after is a metamorphosis of the divine, an evolution of an existing faith or an establishment of a new one. Holy Wars become the backbone of Divinity. For it takes struggle to cement a thing to believe, a common point of strife and torment and toil that a god or its religious icons must represent. The System will accept no less, and thus the divine, the divine-to-be, or that is becoming greater must perform no less. So it is, so it has been, so it will be, as god dashes against god, as Nature goes against Destruction, as Life stands against Death, as War rides into battle against Peace.
—Holy War, by Legend-Lictor Meete Krato
VII-75
Holy War
When Peace came, War stood waiting.
Into the Challenger's realm Adam arrived, his incandescent vapors spreading and rising, powered with his fullest glory. And yet, he was but a candle flame in that wretched, war-scarred world. The Tutorial reeked of death, and its air was stained with the scents of fresh blood and exposed offal.
Shiv came first, standing as the vanguard to his party, and as he emerged from the gateway, he witnessed what the Challenger had laid for them as a bastardized carpet. His lip curled in disgust as he gazed upon tens of thousands of orcs who'd been butchered and massacred, yet not scattered incoherently, instead arranged in the shape of a grand walkway. A skin-made letter of congratulations was nailed to a post made of severed arms right outside the archway of the portal, addressing Adam Arrow, and praising him for his ascent to Legendary status.
The mists around Shiv grew thicker. The Domain of Tyranny pressed down on the Deathless, but the flames of Heroism that accompanied it fueled Shiv with a righteous flame. It didn't matter that the Challenger butchered his own. It was the fact that he was so wasteful and pretentious in his artistic play with life that offended Shiv so.
These were orcs. Psychotic brutes that delved into death and chased that high of cruelty, driven above all by the hunger to feast upon another's misery.
But they could be more. They exhibited so much more. They could still choose. Like Helix. Like Whisper. Like Mortar. Like Tequila.
As the Culturist before them.
They could choose to fight and struggle against their nature, against their basest aspects. And even if they were fated to lose, then at least for a time, they could still perform acts of good while their urges were slaked and sated.
This random bloodletting was unnecessary. Worse, it was a mockery that offended Adam. His left eye brightened, while his empty socket sputtered with fire and outrage. The dawn he carried rose upward from his crown, painting a new light within the Tutorial. The ink-black and rust-red clouds staining the firmament like festering smog were scattered as a radiant eye, brighter than any singular sun rising over the horizon, cast its light down upon the world. And so the orcs, alive and dead both, were drenched in Adam's glory, were bestowed a new radiance, were lit by his incandescence.
All around that ziggurat which once stood as the entranceway into the Tutorial, the Challenger's influence was purged. The air grew clear of harmful contamination and bitter tang. It did not become stale, however; it was inflamed with passion, with a need to defy that which remained here. It was the scent of fire that scoured wounds; it was the taste of retribution against the sickness that came before, and as it burned bright, a laughter greeted it in response.
The Challenger's voice caused his realm to tremble, and booming claps sounded to the accompaniment of thunder from beyond the bend of the horizon. In the trenches and fortifications of the orcs that criss-crossed the land as far as the eye could see, millions of grayskins stood gathered for this momentous occasion. All of the Challenger's spawn seemed to flock toward this place, their bodies gleaming bright in flickers of biology, vitality, and glints of divinity. Adam's power was pressing against them, but the ones further away were spared the fullness of his might, while the ones closest burned like wicks watered with gasoline.
Shiv stood at the forefront of their posse, followed closely by the Culturist, the prodigal son returned home to face his kindred and father with his back straight but expression tense.
But the Challenger did not note him in full, and no longer was Shiv the point of his interest either. A crushing presence from on high washed over the Culturist and Shiv like a passing glance, settling over the by far smallest member of the first three to arrive.
Howling winds arose and spun around the ziggurat, causing Adam's hair to whip about, but they subsided as soon as they came, and from the darkness above the parted clouds, a sharp, clicking sound arrived to replace the noise of the storm.
Before them, lightning-whipped steps forked themselves into existence from beyond the heavens, striking the ground a mere two dozen meters before them like harpoons piercing a whale's hide and branding reality like burn scars.
Shiv felt like the ground beneath them was pulled upward at the same time as the source of the clicking revealed itself as it descended the grand staircase of frozen bolts of crimson.
The Challenger had his arms folded behind his back as he strode down from his divine kingdom without hurry but with terrible purpose behind every step, and his heels struck the scarred firmament with a rhythmic, foreboding beat.
Shiv saw what the orc had done to himself, what the Red Rider had used to replace his missing right hand. Twin glinting limbs, entwined with each other like two serpents coiled around another, shone with the symbolism of retribution as much as a golden radiance. It was an arm stolen from another god, torn away from the Starhawk as a timely transplant, or perhaps to offer another edge of mockery.
As Shiv saw that limb, so too did Roland in the back, and Valor beside him, and Uva, whose tree of lightning quivered still. All of them felt the malicious intent ripping away from the Challenger in blasting tides. It was like standing before a monsoon, being hammered by buffeted walls of wind over and over again. They all tasted the stench, yet felt it burn away as Adam's Awareness poured down and glowed ever brighter.
To Shiv's disbelief, the Challenger did as Adam had foretold. As he walked down his scarred steps to arrive upon the grand walkway he'd constructed, he embraced Adam's Divinity, putting himself below it to look up into the Glare of Immolating Omniscience.
And the Challenger burned. He exposed himself in his totality. His divine flesh was wreathed in flame, and an azure glow simmered as it seared deep into his matter and mythology—for a god was more than but flesh. But as he was scorched, the Challenger began to laugh, his voice booming louder with every moment, his joy rising, his excitement lighting the air with a tangible electricity.
Actual flames rose in the distance, columns of fire tearing apart the earth and reaching for the sky, all quelled and held at bay as the Challenger embraced the light of his lesser yet recognized nemesis.
Adam looked upon his opposite, clenched his fists to keep the terror permeating his body at bay, and took two steps forward. Utter silence reigned as he strode past the Culturist and Shiv, and, with a glare of contempt marring his features, reached back and then cast the Crown of the Anti-Savior at its creator with all the strength he could muster.
A boom sounded as the melted circlet broke the sound barrier and seemed to strike the Challenger directly, quieting his laughter in an instant. Symbology followed symbology as the orc god’s form was enveloped in a blinding flash of light. Yet, as the incandescence faded, only an azure glow lingered in its aftermath. The rising columns of flame and destruction ringing the horizon stilled and dissipated. Instead of ending on a crescendo of devastation, it became a message of desolation. War cancelled out by Peace. A gesture for a gesture. A prayer against a prayer.
But as the light dissipated, it was revealed that rather than suffering the Paragon's might without recourse, the Challenger had reached out and caught. The twin arms of the Starhawk coiled about each other, clutching the melted circlet tight. As the fingers worked and kneaded at its texture, the Challenger lifted the crown high, observing the damage Adam had inflicted on his tool with a muted smile on his face. His theatrics died down as he gave the ruined construct a look of pure appreciation.
"Quite the thing you've done, Little God of Peace to be. Quite the thing you've done, indeed. It would take an act of absolute Tyranny, or perhaps paramount Heroism, to up and reject the cruelty I inflicted upon you. Look at this, look at this!" His voice rose again, carried by a rumble of thunder and lingering hatred. The Challenger's voice echoed and resounded, a cascade of volume and intensity that shook the realm. He was speaking to his children, but also from within them.
Before them, he held the crown high, and the sky above parted. Not far from Adam's Glare of Immolating Omniscience, there shone a second dawn. Yet it was a false dawn, a thing of manufactured light. The Challenger shaped a thing of crushing Pyromancy, greater than anything a mortal could muster. Using the flame and stealing the Paragon’s glow, he created an illusion that danced in the heavens above. With that, he projected that which he saw to all orcs across the dimension: the ruined crown that Adam returned.
"Witness the will of the small! Witness the strength of Tyranny and Heroism! Witness Peace to be!"
The Challenger looked upon Adam once more, but this time it wasn't even appreciation that remained. It was a measuring gaze, a judging gaze, as if he considered striking his foe down before he grew beyond his measure to contain. Shiv intercepted the Challenger's killing intent, as did the Culturist. They placed themselves in front of Adam again, the Deathless rising upon his Shapeless Tides to face the Challenger on equal elevation.
For the first time since they'd arrived, the Challenger's attention slipped away from his chosen rival to another object of historic affection. "Ah, Deathless. How fitting. You and he bound together, a Godling of light and his champion shadow; a dusk to guard the dawn."
The Challenger's words broke off into a resonant rumble, and then he briefly glanced at Uva, and thus did Shiv draw ever closer, threatened twice over compared to before. "I suppose that will make her the priestess, willing or not. But I see it in her, her desires and his separating. The divination of her future and the new nature of his Divinity are at odds, yet affectionately and emotionally so close together they remain. I fear you three may tear each other apart before I ever get to relish in inflicting my violence upon you, or perhaps that struggle will make you all stronger and only ever more delightful to test my soul against. So be it. The three of you will be the altar upon which I shed my blood and ruin. You will do. You will more than do."
“Yeah, but can we say the same for you?" Shiv held his loathing in reserve as much as a hound facing an intruder with its lips pulled back to expose the teeth and gums did its bloodlust. He pulled his own leash tight, held the worst of his rage in control, but even his Harbinger was a coiled snake yearning to lunge forth and strike the Challenger, even if his strength was far inferior compared to that of the God of Strife. More importantly, a part of Shiv was called toward the Challenger to inherit his mantle.
He'd already seized the orc's right hand, and now he sought to return it in the most brutal fashion possible. A question was specifically posed: Could the God of Strife survive a strike from his own deprived limb?
A beast within Shiv was desperate to know. The wiser portion of him, however, denied that pleasure in favor of peace and control.
“Oh, Bruiser, it always pleases me to watch you struggle against your own nature.” The Challenger sighed mournfully. “But the answer is yes, and you know it. Otherwise, you would have found an easy portion of me to crack apart with that little psychological skill, fashioned to make ruined minds and broken hearts. You seek to temper yourself in abnormal quality, but in truth it will always be a flame at your base. It is not a tempering that you can achieve, but rather a channeling. It will always work for you, but not for him. No, he seeks to banish the flame entirely. He seeks to make the world a sea, drowning it until the very idea of fire is quenched forever and always. And so, Deathless, I'm going to tell you something. Think of it as a spoiler ahead of time. Somewhere down the line, perhaps far, far down, or perhaps earlier than any of us can ever expect, you might find yourself closer to me and further from him."
The Challenger's savage smile was all teeth—gleaming with brutal promise. “And before you deny me this possibility, listen to your Harbinger. It is a bad habit to pretend something isn't real. It damages the substance of your own being.”
Shiv poured his hate upon the Challenger, but his adversary only relished the attention. However, Adam's star of Awareness grew ever brighter, and from that gleaming eye he wielded like a blazing star, he focused on the orc god, and his broken voice cut through the air as he strode into the field—but not against the Challenger.
“You mistake your place, Challenger. You see too much. You have so much power. Yet you are impotent. Yet you're blind. Only a limb of my real enemy.” Adam's words came as near stammers, and his mind was scattered and frail. Uva actively held him together, and Shiv did what he could to buffer Adam's bravery. He watched his friend, worried that he might come asunder just from the sheer depravity and desolation that suffused this entire realm. Yet Adam continued to defy, for such was his legend: to struggle, to strain, to suffer, and to emerge, scarred yet undaunted, broken yet purposeful. “I will never name Shiv my champion. I will not enslave him to me, the same way the System has bound you to it. Oh, our legends are entwining..." Adam hesitated, and his eyes drifted. He lost track of himself, of his thoughts.
The Challenger leaned in expectantly, and Shiv struggled with a decision. Should he retreat? Should he carry Adam out of this place before his state got worse?
Uva shared his sentiments, and the mana of her Dreaming Storm grew denser on the other side of the gateway—prepared to explode forth and construct a temporary fortress to cover their escape. Yet Adam recovered once more—for how could he not after all he'd gone through? How could he be any other way?
“I am not here to name you my nemesis, Challenger,” Adam said, swallowing his spit and fear as his glare grew brighter and harder. He rose as well, ascending upward in Shiv’s shadow. “I do not name Shiv my champion. I do not name anything, for nothing here is mine to name. So long as we exist beneath a higher will, everything here is decided beyond our choice. I reject not you but that which you represent, Challenger—I reject the System itself for what it has inflicted upon us.”
Another act of symbology followed his words. His Glare of Immolating Omniscience curved away from Shiv and the Challenger, turned up instead of down, and rather than look upon the land, its blinding gaze was turned to the higher heavens. It shone forth into the void, and beyond even the Challenger’s tethered constellation of worlds. The gesture was grander and deeper than that: the divine star’s beam pierced the fabric of something that shouldn't be seen.
But as Adam willed it, Shiv saw it—the glistening fibers that made up the System's vitality, the chain which represented the existential structure of all existence under its yoke.
Adam managed to cast light on it, if only briefly. He set a flicker ablaze there before the System pushed back, before it rejected him. Yet it couldn't resist him completely. Something about his skill raged and warred against it, and that defiance that characterized the Paragon grew closer to literal rather than figurative truth.
Adam was different; whatever happened in that Delve broke him—but it also reforged him in ways Shiv could sense but not understand. Not yet.
In the physical realm, two forces gathered to face each other. With the Challenger were his orcs and the element of destruction. With Adam were his family, his advisers, mentors, friends, and companions. The Paragon’s side was lesser by far, but all eyes were on him, and everyone followed his finger as he pointed up into the heavens, at the point where his divine glare singed existence.
“You name me nemesis, Challenger. Well, I name something higher than you my true adversary. Someday I will pin the System beneath my palm. Someday, all that is will learn what it feels like to reside beneath my mist, to feel the tyranny of peace absolute. Peace does not exist alone. Peace is not the absence of violence, but the enforcement of order, the separation of destruction from the patterns of this world. My Peace will be a crushing one. My Tyranny will be Heroism of the most unjust quality. I will make a different world, but my battle then cannot be against you, miserable, wretched slave of my true foe.”
Adam rose higher, and Shiv followed, prepared to catch him before he could fall. The Paragon's wings were flickering. His mind and soul felt like they were on the verge of collapse even now, but he held himself through, and his integrity grew ever more solid as Shiv drew closer to support him. Then it became nigh unbreakable as his father followed suit, carrying Adam's other arm, while Uva bulwarked his mind, and the Culturist loomed only a step behind, staring cold hate into the face of his father and maker throughout.
“Up,” Adam said, his voice almost delirious. His movements and desires were possessed by something greater than himself. His voice sounded once more, and Shiv heard it. That divine, crushing quality was the accompaniment to his mists.
“Up,” the voice that swelled inside Adam echoed, but it wasn't Adam, not entirely. Something overtook him, and he became less god and more vessel for something older, ancient, antediluvian.
Roland and Shiv found themselves at an impasse. The Deathless and the Dread Horizon shared a look, but it was Shiv who broke that moment, that hesitation. "Up," he agreed. He didn't want to deny Adam this, even if something else had usurped him from within. If there was something wrong with Adam, they would deal with that on the other side instead of revealing such weakness before the Challenger.
And so they rose higher, and so juxtaposition came into form. Roland and Shiv held Adam aloft, and their bodies were enshrouded in the backdrop of blinding, divine light. The System then answered, bestowing something upon Adam, fueling him with more power, and his divinity only grew. His flames burned brighter, spilling out from him, turning blue, going from blinding to searing as the influence of the Challenger was pushed back. The Challenger himself burned, as did his realm. His body was seared as the sin inside of him was kindled before the presence of tyrannical heroism. For the first time, the Challenger took a step back, surrendering his approach as he retreated, but not because he was truly wounded.
The burns he suffered were paltry, indeed, but it seemed that he recognized what was taking shape here and wanted to play along, if only to imbue the Paragon with greater power. Shiv had read things from the Challenger's face: that look of religiosity, the same kind of holy euphoria the faithful expressed when bearing witness to the descent of their own god or the coming of a saint. It lasted for a flicker before it was replaced by a dark and lustful satisfaction. The orc gave two more steps, retreating up those lightning-scarred slabs lining the fabric of reality as Adam's light grew brighter, as his divinity grew truer.
The crown upon his head, flaming and bright, lost the last luster of its incandescence as it hardened into a thin band of azure radiance. Shiv struggled to interpret the implications of such a thing, but it stood in juxtaposition as well. The contrast between Adam losing his personal glow, yet his glow returning around his skull, manifesting as that twin to the Crown of the Anti-Savior he'd just cast back, couldn't be denied. The significance was great and confusing to Shiv. He couldn't process why this was the case, or what the System was trying to express.
Elevating his confusion ever more was Uva's whispered warning that snaked into his skull: "The Crown of the Anti-Savior is dissolving!" True to her words, Shiv watched as the crown of torment the Challenger had forced upon Adam broke apart into parting particles of ash within the orc god’s grasp, devoured by the System. And it wasn’t even of the Challenger's will, for his face betrayed a look of genuine shock.
As it dissolved, a new shape formed around Adam’s head: a crown wreathed of his own nature, lit by his own glory, beyond his Divinity, and also the bedrock to it. From it flowed the streams of fire, for at its center was an eye that burned bright, a perfect replica of the glaring star of omniscience that he now manifested in the sky above. That eye pressed deep into the center of his skull until it submerged itself into his flesh and bone without pain. The integration was perfect and harmonious, yet still against Adam's volition.
A hollow laugh escaped the Paragon. He turned to Shiv, his neck almost unable to support the weight of his head. “It marked me, even now. It awarded me a purified version of the crown he forced on me.” The Paragon's laughter became something that was almost akin to a sob. “Take it off from me. I don't want it. I don't want any of the System's gifts. I don't want to be stained by the story it forces on me anymore. It's not my legend. None of this is my legend. None of this is our legend. We all exist as threads it weaves, but in these threads it pushes upon us. For all her power, Evanescia is just that which resides below. This is what it is above. I think I realized what Silence was trying to do now. I think I see it…”
The delirium that ruled Adam was clear, but so too was something else. He had glimpsed a truth that eluded all others. The Harbinger felt it, and thus did Shiv. The Deathless acted not as Adam's champion, but as his friend, as he reached out. Yet even as he pressed his fingertips against the crown, now purified and stained with Adam's essence, he found he couldn't pull it away. It was rooted as deep and true as the Crown of the Anti-Savior had been. Though this bestowal gave Adam power and enhanced his Divinity, though it was something that seemed beneficial on the surface, just suffering its presence upon himself filled him with palpable anguish.
“The System taunts Adam. The System taunts us.” The Harbinger's words were hoarse and hollow, and Shiv's actions proved fruitless as the crown refused the persuasion of both Adam’s will and Shiv's strength.
“I see, then. What a joyless, wretched struggle you've chosen for yourself. What a hopeless, fatalistic scripture you are writing, O God of Heroic Tyranny.” For the first time, the Challenger sounded genuinely sympathetic, and the remorse radiating from his person was deep and true. "I will weep for you someday, perhaps. I see this now is not a struggle against me, but everything that is, even yourself. You see me as an expression of the System. How can I say you are wrong? To reject everything and all of this, to reject the very cradle of existence you were spawned in… What a path of fated tragedy. But so be it. That ambition is most respectable, though it might see you struck down far earlier than my liking. Still, I pray to you, O Paragon: Continue defying the world that is for the world you wish it to be.”
“And I reject your prayer,” Adam spat back at the Challenger. "I reject all future prayers from you. I reject everything you want to give, everything you can give. I reject all you are and all you represent, and I castigate you!” Adam coughed, but he continued speaking, and as he turned to face the Challenger, his glare descended once more and he pointed at his foe. The light intensified, his soul swelled, burning ever brighter. For a moment, Adam's flesh appeared to dissolve, turning into a thing of swirling mist. The substance of that great hand that he called down replaced his shape, and only in the vagueness of the vapors could Shiv see any semblance of the man that was. “I castigate you not with a Curse, for such a thing is beneath me. I do not need to bludgeon or bully with my Tyranny, for my Tyranny is absolute, but I ask of you this: You have chosen cruelty, think it is your shape, but will you abide by my cruelty when the time comes that I leave you dreamless and unslaked in peace? As I leave you a warlord without a war to indulge in? Decide, Challenger. Decide your nature. I give you this one chance to repent, to redeem yourself. For the Heroism in me demands it despite how much the Tyranny in me despises it. Is this your story, Challenger, or the one the System forced upon you? Are you a beast of your own will, or are you just a candle lit by a higher force?”
And as sudden as it manifested, the palm that emerged from Adam vanished, returning his mortal flesh, yet staining him with a continued veil of vapors. The mists swirling about him didn't dissolve entirely anymore. Instead, they clung to him, swaying from him like a cloak. The cloak painted the realm around him in the most subtle aura of lashing peace, and though it passed through Roland without issue, it burned and sizzled against Shiv's flesh. It cleaved through his darkness like a blade greeting the shadows. Despite the pain he endured, he remained in place, for Adam still needed him, for Adam had sagged and succumbed, overwhelmed by his exhaustion and all that he faced as the azure band now fused to his skull flared bright—and grew ever tighter.
But a wretched gasp snatched Shiv’s attention back to the Challenger—and the Deathless felt himself run dry of both thoughts and words as a similar crown materialized around the Challenger’s skull. It manifested from Adam’s Divinity, and it tightened around the God of Strife just as the God of Strife had once inflicted a similar torment upon Adam.
The circle was made complete then. A festering enervation swept through the Tutorial as the Challenger clutched his head in incomprehension and pain as the azure band sank into him. But rather than bleed his flesh or shred his mind, it veiled him in a mist on semblance to that which consumed Adam, and the Tyranny of Heroism roasted the Challenger slowly, unceasingly, without any recourse.
The Challenger struggled and pried, but he failed to remove that which rooted itself to him, and in that continued suffering, a laugh of true joy left him—a pure laugh only a child or monster could muster. “So be it, Paragon! I accept your Blessing. I will begin my time of fasting, and I will emerge unchanged, so you know my Divinity is as true as yours.” The God of Strife trembled with excitement but also the first shivers of withdrawal, and he looked to Shiv. “Deathless. Hear me in the stead of your… friend. I have an offering for you and my orcs.”
“Fuck your offering,” Shiv snarled, unwilling to risk any more bargains.
“It is not something you can reject alone,” the Challenger continued, unimpressed. “Because it concerns my orcs—especially the ones who have seen my magnanimity toward the Culturist, and wish to experience what he has: to be spared the itch. To be… unrestrained, inversely from how I must now. I ask that you leave the gateway open, and receive those of my spawn who want to experience a new path. I ask that you leave the gateway open, for the coming period—until the end of my fast.”
The Challenger paused for a beat. “For when that time comes, any who have not submitted to your Paragon will share in your fate, as I will shatter this band and indulge in a feast most bloody after this vexing fast. And I will come for your Gate, Insul. I will see you lashed and crucified, dying again and again and again, made to witness the fates of your loved ones as I grant you my truest insights into the cruelest ways of war.”
Quest Update: Fend off the joint Vulteg, Compact, First Blood, Jotun, and orc invasion.
Rewards: +200 levels for a selected skill, +50 levels for 3 selected skills
Penalty: The Challenger himself breaches Gate Piety and merges it into the Tutorial after claiming the mana core.
“Really?” Shiv seethed. “You’re really going to pull this shit now?”
The Challenger made a one-handed, heart-shaped gesture at Shiv with his stolen twin hand. “Fight well and rebuff me, Deathless. Protect what you cherish well. I have high faith in you as well. And do handle that Tarrasque of yours as soon as possible—you really don’t want me and mine to get our hands on that. I have such ideas for… improvements. Now. The first testament of the Paragon’s faith is in motion; I bid you fortune for the path he has chosen, the path you share, and all that is to follow.”
The God of Strife ascended his scarred steps—or at least he tried to. As his body festered with the mists of Tyranny, the essence of Heroism smote that which was shaped from the purity of destruction, and the grotesque staircase the Challenger made from himself shattered beneath his weight—forcing him to humble himself through actual flight. And as the Challenger ascended back to his divine realm, he laughed with budding enthusiasm, like an old monster roused back into battle against a worthy Pathbearer who dared venture into his cavern.
The Deathless, meanwhile, was far less enthused.
“Shiv. Did you just get that Quest notification?” Uva asked, her mind quivering with horror.
“Yup.”
“Fuck!” she snarled.
“Yuuup,” Shiv agreed. “We need to get ready—figure things out. We have to close the gateway and—”
“No,” Adam whispered, shaking his head. He was roused from his stupor, and judging from the expression on his face, he wasn’t possessed anymore, but his determination endured. He pushed himself upright using Shiv and his father as he took in the world around them. “I need to stay. I need to… They need my light. They need to step into my light. I want to be here and witness… I need to be here… They’ll be my responsibility when it happens.”
“What?” Roland asked, not fully understanding what Adam meant.
But Shiv did, and as he turned, he swallowed.
Their shadows blotted out land and sky, for in their thousands and their millions they approached, from the bunkers and trenches, down from the clouds and from beyond the horizon, all without hesitation—with the certainty possessed by a race comprised of individualists that had lived for far too long. The Challenger’s sons moved, and it was like sections of the world moved with them.
Adam’s first pilgrims came as a living tide, and one after another, beasts born to war and nursed on blood and shadow cast themselves into a descending pillar of all-consuming light to set themselves afire with a new purpose.
“By the Ascendants,” Roland gasped.
“No,” Shiv said, staring worriedly at the mists that overflowed from within Adam. “By whatever the hells is inside your son.”