Chapter 387

The core of the White Wolf, a sphere of storm-grey wind. The core of the Sovereign, a pulsing green heart. The core of the Cinder-Maw, a burning magma rock. All three escaped his storage ring, aided by the overwhelming magic of the Greater Ritual that surpassed even the protections Ogden had placed on his ring.And from Vane’s pocket, a fourth light burst out. The crystalline tear of the Weeping Legion tore through the Captain’s coat, joining the others.

The four cores began orbiting the Inner Guardian like electrons around a nucleus, spinning so fast they blurred, then slammed into his chest with a sound that cracked the obsidian floor.

The backlash traveled through the violet mana threads into the pylons, overwhelming the dwarven runes and turning them to slag until they dripped uselessly, ruined beyond any hope of repair.

The Guardian threw his head back, howling in glee as the Greater Ritual locked into place. He grew even bigger, his fur shedding to reveal skin that gleamed like polished amethyst.

The ether burned. Nick had long since stopped peering into the chaotic eddies, too wary of what lurked just beyond the veil, but he didn’t need to sense the massive presence approaching, surrounding the chamber.

The sheer ontological weight of a God trying to squeeze through a mortal vessel was bending the local laws of physics. The World itself was screaming, and the ambient mana of the planet recoiled from the foreign presence.

"I see it," the Guardian whispered, his voice booming from everywhere at once. "The DoOr is opEn. I wIlL AsCenD!”

On the platform, Captain Vane was knocked back by the shockwave, his armor smoking. He scrambled to his feet despite the blood pouring from his ears, staring at the monster he had foolishly thought he could use as a battery.

“It knew,” he whispered in horror. “It knew all along.”

“You did the work for me," the Guardian mused in a different tone, looking down with eyes that were no longer lupine but burning stars of violet fire. “I suppose I should reward you for your service, even if it was not your intention to render it. I am a kind God, after all.”

The Wolf raised a hand, and the Well roared to life, its light shifting to a dominant violet as more mana started pouring out of it.

Nick watched, frozen, as the energy started to spiral outward. The enormous amount being released could easily power the Greater Ritual by itself, and if the Well kept fueling it, the Guardian would soon have enough mana to influence the land outside the dungeon.

Depending on his skill, the Guardian could likely impact a large portion of the Sunlands.

Nick thought, unable to escape the truth.

Rituals had always been his thing. They served him well in his second life, and even when he faced others who knew how to control their untamed power, his experience and otherworldly knowledge were enough to win.

And he’d thought it could be repeated here, too. It was ridiculously arrogant of him, he saw that now, but what else could he have done?

He found the answer with a touch of bitter humor.

“No, not yet,” a voice grit out.

Nick’s head snapped toward the platform, where he saw Vane standing up. He was clearly in pain, and it was easy to imagine that his coils were probably shot from the backlash of the dwarven construct failing while he was commanding it, but somehow, he didn’t seem ready to give up yet.

He reached into his breastplate and pulled out a scroll case made of black iron. Looking at it gave Nick a strange sense of vertigo: he could clearly see it, yet it felt as if nothing was there, and he knew it was made of the same material as the Compass of Interesting Times, which now served as a structural component of the Shard.

The Guardian watched him with mild interest. He appeared completely unconcerned as more of the divine essence of the Feral God pressed against the veil between dimensions, slowly seeping through the air and suffocating the World.

This was his Apotheosis, his ascension beyond Prestige.

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Yet Vane genuinely didn’t seem to think it was over, as he staggered two steps forward until he reached the edge of the platform overlooking the Well.

“Emergency Protocol,” Vane grunted, holding the scroll high. “!”

He threw it into the geyser erupting from the Well, and for a long moment, nothing happened. Nick sensed the first flickers of doubt grow within the Captain, and a low chuckle escaped the Guardian, but both were interrupted when suddenly, a sphere of absolute, devouring darkness erupted at the base of the Well, and the violet geyser flickered, violently drawn into the black hole Vane had unleashed.

Nick tried and failed to examine the phenomenon. It was unlike anything he’d ever encountered before, sharing no connection with the psychic arts or even demonic magic.

The only thing he could compare it to was the feeling of total emptiness that followed the Nigredo stage of the false Philosopher’s Stone.

The Guardian roared in anger as the connection with the immaterial was destabilized, allowing the World to push back against the intrusion and drawing the wrath of his patron deity.

The four cores around him flickered rapidly, suddenly holding up the Greater Ritual on their own. And without the Anchors to assist, that was no longer possible.

“Now!” Vane shouted, and more men materialized from the edges of the room, catching Nick off guard, who hadn’t even noticed them.

That just went to show how deeply the dungeon had been messing with his senses, as they couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet away from him.

They rushed forward, lunging at the floating werewolf and trying to end it in its moment of weakness, and for a moment, Nick allowed himself to hope.

That died a swift death when the Guardian simply slashed his claws and tore apart the first wave of soldiers into chunks of meat, barely needing to put any effort into the act.

He was distracted, clearly working hard to counteract the scroll’s influence and desperately trying to maintain the ritual, lest it collapse upon him, but while that would have been a fatal situation for another ritualist, the remnants of the ancient healer who had once roamed these lands and been recognized for his skill by a god of healing still remained within the beast, allowing it to dispatch the second wave just as easily.

Nick could feel the chaos of conflicting energies slowly untangling. Whatever trump card Vane had played was probably a legendary artifact, but even it seemed only able to stall the Guardian, and despair began to grow again, until something came over him.

A strange sort of warmth, along with the feeling of a hand pushing his back, was all Nick needed to give in to the madness.

He didn’t think twice, sprinting past the few remaining soldiers who were regrouping for one last effort to stop the seemingly immortal monster, and ran toward the edge of the Well.

Nick’s mind raced as he approached the blinding clash of powers.

“You’re missing the forest for the trees, boy,” a voice echoed in the back of his skull.

Nick faltered, nearly falling. He recognized that voice. In fact, he had heard it just recently.

It was his grandfather’s.

The man wasn't there, of course. He was dead and buried in a different world. But the Tree of Life Nick had cultivated, the mental architecture he had built under the old man’s tutelage, carried an echo of his teacher. Or perhaps, in the face of annihilation, Nick’s subconscious had taken on the mask of the one man he trusted to know the way.

It didn’t really matter because he was desperate enough to take any advice.

“Unless you have forgotten, a ritual isn’t a spell,” the voice lectured acerbically, “it is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. It is the harmony between free will and destiny!”

He asked even as he reached the edge. The heat was unbearable, though he knew it was only a fraction of the actual power being expressed, the only way his body had of translating what standing next to the Well was like.

“You have two rituals happening at the same time, in the same place, with seemingly identical checkpoints. That should tell you Fate is hard at work. Now take Her hand and figure it out.” What he believed to be his grandfather’s echo pointed out.

Nick wanted to say it was ridiculous to believe that Fate had guided him to participate in a personal ritual that somehow exactly matched the one being performed by the ancient sorcerer at the center of the dungeon, but he couldn’t deny the facts.

He had personally observed how eerily similar the two works were.

he wondered, and for once, the answer was easy to reach.

What that meant was that he needed to undermine its attempt to reach the Super-conscious, or the divine will behind it would manifest.

“Be the Kingdom,” the voice scoffed. “If the Crown has no Kingdom to rule, it's just a man in a silly hat. Ground the circuit. Become the Cross upon which the Rose blooms.”

And Nick knew.

Without wasting any more time, he leaped into the Well, diving headfirst into the boiling violet power.

Pain hit him first.

It wasn't physical, since his body wasn't relevant here. Instead, it was the pain of his soul being exposed to too much at once. Even with the raw mana of the World flowing through him, the Feral God’s taint was strong, and that wasn’t to speak of the sheer power of the Well itself.

Nick hung suspended in the pillar of light, his arms spread wide, and though he couldn’t gather enough focus to summon them, he knew several notifications were flashing in his mind as fought tooth and nail against the invading forces.

he commanded himself.

Visualizing the Tree of Life in his mind required more effort than usual because his surroundings were so chaotic, but when he succeeded, he confirmed what he had been suspecting.

The buds of the remaining steps were slowly beginning to sprout. They were nowhere near ready to mature on their own, as he’d only just decided to try completing them, but the fact that they had responded to his decision showed it was not without importance.

“Binah,” his grandfather’s voice whispered. “Is Understanding itself. Give the chaos a shape. Define it.”

The Rosicrucian cross at the center of his soul pulsed in resonance as he beheld the entire Greater Ritual for the first time.

It was a great and terrible work, born from centuries of pain and madness, from self-loathing so intense that it prevented a God from accessing the Well on its own, and now it was corrupted, working against what had been its only purpose.

Nick beheld it, and he Knew.