Lemony didn't stop. His boots crunched on the frozen gravel as he walked deeper into the cave, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.
I have to end this. I have to kill Malphas. If I don't, that machine in the void is waiting for me. I am not going to be tortured for eternity. I refuse.
As he walked, a memory bubbled up from the back of his mind.
It was a cold afternoon years ago at the Pamon mansion.
He had been scrubbing the stone floors, his hands raw from the lye, when he saw it. A bright, leather ball left behind by the master's son. He had picked it up, feeling the weight of it.
For a second, he wasn't a slave. He was just a kid who wanted to play. He had hidden it behind a pillar, planning to kick it around once the sun went down and the guards were drunk.
But he never got the chance.
A guard had seen him.
He remembered the heavy thud of a boot hitting his ribs over and over until he coughed up blood.
He had wanted revenge so badly back then.
He wanted to see that guard crawl.
But he was just trash.
He never got his justice.
But today is different, he thought, his jaw tightening. I have one goal. Defeat a god and free everyone. If I can do that, maybe the kid who just wanted to play with a ball can finally rest.
He rounded the corner and saw three figures standing in the path.
Fiji stood there like a wall of moss and stone, his glowing eyes filled with a strange sort of relief.
Beside him, the gunslinger looked like a shadow in his long duster coat, his hand hovering near his weapon with a cold, calculating gaze.
Then there was Pippin, the small, well-dressed creature who looked like he was about to burst with questions.
"You're Lemony, right?!" Pippin shouted, scurrying toward him.
"Hey! Did you really fight that thing? Is it true you survived a Divine Tread? How did you survive the aura pressure? Answer me!"
Lemony didn't even look at him. He walked right past the small man, his gaze locked on the massive stone golem.
"Fiji... Help me open the gate. We're going back in."
"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Pippin cried, waving his arms.
"Do you have any idea how statistically impossible your survival is? You shouldn't even have a soul left!"
You think you're a hero now? You're just a Manul with a death wish. But if you really saw what's behind that door, I need to know every detail before I try to talk to it.
The gunslinger watched Lemony with an intense, silent focus.
He was looking for a crest.
A Rank 1 Sovereign? A Rank 2 Scion? But there was nothing. This kid was a Common Paw. He was the lowest tier of the Great Bestiary, yet he had walked out of a god's throne room.
It's blasphemy, the gunslinger thought. The laws of power state that a Common Paw should disintegrate just by standing in Malphas's presence. And that rock creature... it doesn't have a crest either. This mountain is a graveyard of logic.
They started walking down the tunnel in a heavy, suffocating silence.
"What is the Heraldic power of Malphas? If we're going in there, I need to know what kind of weight we're pushing against," the gunslinger asked, his voice echoing.
"It's a dark aura," Pippin explained, glad to finally be the one talking.
"It makes people kneel. It can stop your heart just by being in the same room. That's the Heraldic nature of an ancient beast."
Fiji tilted his head, looking confused.
"Aura is just... air. How does it kill?"
"Because Heraldic powers are innate to the species, you giant rock!" Pippin snapped.
"There are two parts. The passive is the aura, the weight of your existence. But the active is the true ability, the one they choose to trigger. If his passive is already that strong, his active ability probably rewrites reality."
Lemony listened, nodding slightly. He remembered hearing a traveling scholar explain this to the Pamon heir five years ago. The scholar had talked about Blazoning, the way a soul marks itself, and a much darker and mysterious concept called Grafting.
They reached the massive iron doors. The air was getting colder, and the pressure was beginning to rise again.
The massive iron gates groaned, the sound of ancient metal scraping against stone echoing through the hollow throat of the mountain. Before Fiji could put his full weight into the push, the gunslinger stepped forward, his hand resting on the brim of his hat.
"What are you even using to kill a thing like that?"
"My hands," Lemony said.
He didn't even look back. He just stared at the sliver of darkness growing between the doors.
"Are you stupid or are you just stupid?" Pippin blurted out, his voice hitting a high, nervous pitch.
He's insane. He actually has the balls to walk in there with nothing but his knuckles.
Fiji ignored the bickering and heaved. The gates swung wide, revealing a chamber that seemed to swallow the light. As they stepped inside, the air became thick, like walking through tall grass made of needles.
The torches along the walls suddenly flared to life with a ghostly blue flame, illuminating the nightmare at the center of the room.
Malphas was a mountain of obsidian flesh and misplaced geometry. He looked like a lion that had been stretched and broken, with wings made of bone and eyes that were nothing but swirling voids of white smoke.
He stood twenty feet tall.
Suddenly, the air snapped.
The Heraldic aura hit them like a falling ceiling. The pressure was absolute. Pippin hit the floor instantly, his face pressed into the dirt. Ve and Fiji buckled, their knees hitting the stone with a heavy thud. The weight of a god's existence was telling them to crawl and die.
But in the center of the room, one figure remained standing.
Lemony Xaphan Pamon didn't even flinch.
His fur stood on end, and his eyes had turned a sharp, predatory yellow, but he didn't kneel. He never looked like a normal cat to begin with, but now, under the blue torchlight, he looked like something forged in a different kind of fire.
He cracked his knuckles. The sound was like a pistol shot in the quiet room. Then, he ran.
"Lemony! Get back here!" Pippin screamed from the floor.
The gunslinger moved with a speed that defied the pressure. He grabbed Pippin by the scruff of the neck and threw him toward Fiji.
"Just stay there and keep your head down!"
A blue portal tore open in the air in front of the gunslinger. He stepped through it and vanished, reappearing ten feet in the air, level with the beast's chest. He drew his twin revolvers in a blurred motion.
"Teeth bullets," the gunslinger muttered.
The guns roared, firing white projectiles that hissed through the air. They slammed into Malphas's obsidian hide, chipping off sparks of dark energy, but the beast didn't even move. It was like throwing pebbles at a fortress.
Lemony reached the giant's feet and launched himself upward. He punched the beast's shin, his fist glowing with a faint, sickly red light.
The impact sent a shockwave through the floor, but Malphas simply looked down with those smoke-filled eyes.
"Fiji! Do something!" Pippin yelled, scrambling behind a rock.
Fiji roared, his stone arms trembling as he hurled a boulder the size of a carriage at the god's head. Malphas didn't even raise a hand. The aura around him simply intensified, and the boulder disintegrated into fine sand before it even touched his skin.
"It no use!" Fiji groaned, his stone body cracking under the pressure.
Lemony was a blur of motion, climbing the beast's back and tearing at the obsidian skin with his bare claws.
"ARGHHHH!"
He was screaming, a raw, gutteral sound of pure rage. He bit into the shoulder of the god, trying to drain the very essence of the mountain.
But finally, Malphas reacted. He didn't use a weapon. He just flexed his aura once again like every other time.
The shockwave sent Lemony flying across the room like a ragdoll. He slammed into a stone pillar with the sound of breaking bones echoing clearly.
"Lemony!" the gunslinger shouted.
He stepped through another portal, catching the manul mid-air before he hit the ground.
But Malphas wasn't finished. The beast lunged with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for his size. A massive, clawed hand swung in a wide arc. The gunslinger tried to dive, but the edge of the blow caught him square in the chest.
The gunslinger was sent skidding across the floor. He rolled to a stop and immediately vomited a thick spray of dark blood onto the snow-covered stone.
The aura... it's shredding my insides. I can't even breathe. Every time he moves, the air itself turns into a blade.
Malphas stood still again with the smoke in his eyes swirling faster. He looked bored. Really bored.
But then, Malphas finally moved.
It wasn't a fast strike, but it was heavy. He raised a massive, obsidian hand and brought it down like a falling ceiling, aiming to crush the small pests into the stone floor.
The gunslinger didn't retreat. He stood his ground and raised both of his hands, his boots cracking the floor as he braced himself. The muscles in his arms bulged, straining against the fabric of his tattered duster. He was shaking from the sheer weight.
"Use the portal!" Pippin screamed from behind a pillar.
"I... I can't!" the gunslinger grunted. His teeth were clenched so hard they looked like they might shatter.
I can't let this cat die like him if I use the portal...
The hand pressed down further. The gunslinger's knees began to buckle, and Lemony was right there beside him, his own small hands pushed upward against the black flesh of the god. Even Fiji let out a low, rumbling groan of despair.
"They going to turned into paste! Malphas has no mercy for living!"
Pippin saw the shadow growing over them.
He realized that if he didn't do something now, the only friends he had left were going to be a red smear on the floor. He stepped out into the open, his tiny chest heaving.
"I'm here to negotiate!" Pippin shrieked.
Malphas didn't stop. The hand continued its slow, lethal descent. The god looked bored, as if he were simply squashing an annoying bug that had finally started making noise.
"I want you to help us!" Pippin continued.
"Help us defeat the scavengers and escape this mountain! We will give you whatever you need! Just name the price!"
The gunslinger looked over his shoulder, his eyes bloodshot from the pressure.
Please work. Please, you little loudmouth, make him listen.
Suddenly, the pressure shifted. The hand stopped just inches above the gunslinger's head. A sound vibrated through the very marrow of their bones. It was speech.
"ⲛⲅ̅ⲛⲁϣϫⲉ ⲁⲛ ⲛ̅ϩⲉⲛϣⲁϫⲉ ⲛ̅ⲙⲉ ⲉϩⲣⲁⲓ̈ ⲉϫⲛ̅ⲧⲁϩⲟ."
(You cannot speak true words against my face.)
It talked? the gunslinger thought, his mind reeling. The Divine Treads aren't supposed to speak the tongue of the lower layers. This is ancient. This is pre-Partition dialect.
Pippin stared up into the void-filled eyes of the monster. He took a shaky breath and opened his mouth.
"ⲁⲛⲟⲕ ϯⲉⲓⲣⲉ," Pippin said.
(I do.)
The silence that followed was deafening. Malphas froze. His massive hand pulled back slowly, the obsidian skin rippling with a strange, new energy. He leaned his mountain-sized head down, narrowing his smoky eyes as he glanced deeply into the tiny creature standing before him.
The god was shocked.
I actually did it. I found a way in. That's because he didn't expect a Common Paw to know the language of the creators.
The gunslinger's jaw practically hit the stone floor. He stared at the small, trembling creature beside him, unable to process what he was hearing. Pippin, the loudmouth who obsessed over old books and biological trivia, was speaking a tongue that shouldn't exist in this era.
Malphas pulled his massive hand back completely. The obsidian mountain of a beast lowered his head until his smoky, white eyes were level with Pippin.
The pressure in the room didn't disappear, but it shifted from a crushing weight to a vibrating hum.
"ⲛ̅ⲧⲟⲕ ⲕ̅ϣⲁϫⲉ ⲛ̅ⲟⲩⲟⲛ," the god rumbled.
(You speak with someone.)
"ϯⲥⲟⲟⲩⲛ," Pippin whispered back.
(I know.)
His legs were shaking so hard he looked like he might collapse, but he held the beast's gaze.
The two of them stayed like that for a long moment, locked in a silent contest of wills. Malphas seemed to be measuring the soul of the tiny being standing before him.
Finally, the god opened his mouth again, the dark energy rippling around his teeth.
"Ⲁⲛⲟⲕ... ϯⲟⲩⲉϣ ⲉ... ϯⲟⲩⲉϣ ⲛ̅ⲟⲩⲛⲟϭ ⲛ̅ϩⲱⲃ," Malphas began.
(As for me... I want to... I want a great thing.)
But before the beast could finish his thought, a cold voice cut through the air.
"I want to kill you," Lemony said.
He stepped forward, his fur matted with blood and his ruined hand hanging at his side.
He didn't look at Pippin or the gunslinger. He looked directly into the swirling void of Malphas's eyes. It was the truth. He wanted to end the god, because if the god lived, the cycle of the mountain would never break.
If the god lived, the void would eventually reclaim Lemony for an eternity of pain.
The room went deathly silent.
Shut up! You're ruining the show!
Pippin looked like he wanted to faint, and the gunslinger slowly reached for his gun, expecting the god to turn them all into ash for the insult.
Instead, Malphas let out a sound that might have been a sigh. The smoke in his eyes swirled faster, turning a deep, mournful grey.
He ignored Lemony's threat and looked back at Pippin.
It was ridiculous, which was true given the situation. But another thing that was true were Lemony's words...
Due to the fact that:
"ϯⲟⲩⲉϣ ⲉⲧⲁⲕⲟ ⲧⲁⲯⲩⲭⲏ," Malphas said.
(I want to destroy myself.)