Jerry stepped forward once more, returning to the forefront of the Pillar of Pandemonium. He pressed his hand against the very heart of the structure and drew in a slow, steady breath.
Then he began to chant.
Ancient syllables spilled from his tongue—forbidden words meant to unlock gates long buried and awaken the nightmares that were never meant to return to the waking world.
Jerry: "ᛚᛂᚤᚠ ᛉᛂᚱ ᛆᛐ ᛚᛂᚤᛍᛆ ᛡᛁᚿᛆ ᚠᚢᚵᛚᚴᛂᚿᛑᚢ ᚮᚡᛅᛐᛁ, ᚦᛆ ᛍᛚᛁᛉᚴᛂᚿᛑᚢ ᛍᚴᚱᛁᛉᛍᛚᛁ ᛉᛂᚦ ᛚᛁᛐ, ᚦᛆ ᛂᚱ ᚵᛚᛂᚤᛉᛑᛁᚱ ᚡᛆᚱᚢ ᛆᚠ ᛁᚮᛐᚿᚢᛉ ᚮᚴ ᚦᛆ ᛂᚱ ᛍᚡᛁᚡᛁᚱᚦᛆᚦᛁᚱ ᚡᛆᚱᚢ ᛆᚠ ᛁᛆᚠᚿᚡᛅᚵᛁ"
The air tightened. Kaiser held his breath as the seconds stretched. And stretched.
The Pillar shifted—only slightly. Nothing more happened after that. Jerry's eyes narrowed, patience thinning but not yet broken.
Kaiser: "What—"
The world ruptured.
Thousands of flaming tentacles exploded from the fractured stone, ripping the pillar apart and vomiting torrents of molten lava that scorched the earth!
The shockwave launched Jerry and Kaiser skyward. They tore through the mists, shattering through the arc of a nearby rainbow, and bursting into the free skies above the clouds.
Jerry spun out his Horcriax, latching it's lunar force onto Kaiser and dragging the howling Dictator closer.
Jerry's eyes darted wildly as he sensed something vast approaching.
The sky split open.
Dark-green, serpent-like monstrosities pierced through the heavens, their colossal bodies slithering into view as their crimson eyes gleamed with delight. Their screams rippled through the air, shaking the isles' entire foundation.
Their bright green fur whipped violently in the wind as they coiled around one another, intertwining like living vines.
The scale was immeasurable.
Kaiser: "Jerry! Look out!"
Jerry propelled himself backward just as a titanic-sized hand erupted upward from below.
It was cloaked in shining gold fur, where thick rivers of black ichor streamed down its lanky fingers.
In the center of its palm, a single red eye pulsed—throbbing like a beating heart.
The volume of Kaiser's screams rose as a gargantuan monkey's head emerged beside the hand. Its golden hair shimmered through the clouds while it's dark-red eyes burned with feral excitement.
A wheezing laugh rolled from its throat, globs of bubbling saliva sloshing from its jaws. It launched it's other hand into the sky, completely blocking out the sun.
Jerry grunted as crushing waves of air pressure slammed into him, sending him plummeting. He snapped his fingers.
The Scarlet Horcriax was summoned back into his grasp as the wind roared past his ears.
He glanced down at the rapidly approaching ground—where armies of Hellish Knights marched across the burning lands, eyes wide with hunger.
Jerry let the violent currents guide him back to the earth.
Jerry: "There are so many of them. I'm in awe."
Mockery sneered across his lips as he raised his Horcriax.
Boom.
Not one—but thousands of lunar shockwaves detonated from the garnet's edge, cascading outward in rings of pale blue light.
The Hellish Knights halted mid-march, agony ripping through their ruined veins as the Titan's authority pressed against their very existence.
Above, Kaiser descended slowly, carried down by the staff's moonlit force. His wide eyes watched as the golden ape and serpent-like horrors recoiled, their shrieks faltering beneath the oppressive might of a god's blessing.
Jerry's cloak fluttered coolly behind him, scattering ash into the wind as he stepped atop a jagged boulder.
He lifted his Horcriax high, compelling the defiled ones.
Jerry: "Listen carefully, you wretches! You will follow the path I set before you! Beyond these Lunar Isles—beyond the forgotten remains of the Moon Drown Dynasty."
His starlit pupils flared.
Jerry: "You will cross the Diex Peninsula. And there… you will feast upon the empire of the Hell Raisers."
He took a moment to inhale.
Jerry: "I grant you days of endless carnage. Go."
Within a single heartbeat, every one of the treacherous beasts vanished.
A dark-purple veil cloaked the isles, soaking the landscape in something heavier.
Jerry chuckled and withdrew a small golden timer from his armor. He pressed its buttons, setting a precise date.
Jerry: "Two weeks. That's how long it'll take."
Kaiser stared at him, pale.
Kaiser: "Why, Jerry… why?"
???: "Yes. Enlighten him, you brainless scoundrel. Why?"
The air died.
A titanic shadow rolled over the horizon, swallowing the isles whole.
Enormous skeletal arms—black and elongated—were dragged across the soaked shores. Each finger carved trenches through sand and stone, nails scraping with a noise like grinding teeth.
They passed over Jerry's small frame, shedding clumps of damp earth and rotting kelp before retracting toward something colossal.
Five hundred feet tall. Jerry slowly lifted his gaze.
It's chest was lined with hundreds of filthy mouths—blistered, cracked, some stitched shut with blackened sinew. Others gaped open, drooling ink-thick bile from split tongues that twitched independently.
It was clear now. Jerry knew exactly who was standing before him.
The Titan of Banishment.
The Herald of the Ageless Wars.
The Ageless Brain.
Where a head should have rested, a humongous brain throbbed atop a skeletal neck. Veins bulged grotesquely beneath slick, rose flesh, pulsating in wet rhythms.
Black mucous seeped from its end, streaming down in sticky ropes that splattered onto the earth with sickening squelches.
Two cavernous sockets had been planted into the front of the brain's mass— and within them floated swarms of scarlet apertures.
The Ageless Brain: "What a pitiful little thing you are. Jerry Windfield, a man drowning in his own hubris."
His voice was layered—scorched, slimy, ancient. It was like a thousand throats speaking from inside rotted lungs.
The Ageless Brain: "Do not choke now."
Jerry's hands trembled as he began to raise them.
Jerry: "W-Wait—"
There was a sound like wet parchment tearing. In less than a blink, Jerry's hands were gone.
Blood sprayed in wild arcs as he was hurled backward by an invisible slash, crashing into the hillside with brutal force.
Kaiser stood frozen, teeth chattering uncontrollably.
The Ageless Brain: "Tell me, you foolish man… what shall thy punishment be?"