The Calamitous Bob

Avarice crashed through the roof of Maranor’s temple. There was a time to respect her as a (nominally) light goddess and a time to disrespect brutalist architecture. Viv didn’t need a guide to feel the sickly emanations of mana coming from the complex’s sanctum. The only reason why she didn’t crash there on the spot was the fear of traps. A circle of Maranorian temple guards formed a half-circle in front of the elaborate entrance, their swords shining with divine mana.

Viv strutted right up to the captain without slowing down.

“This isn’t your fight. You’re outclassed. Help with the town’s evacuation.”

She fully released [genocidal maniac], not sure that it would lead to anything. Holy warriors tended to — and they were running. Even Avarice was looking at Viv with wide eyes.

Wait until I show you off to the other dragons.

Proud parent moment. Nevertheless, it was time to end this. Viv opened the door with a judicious application of kinetic energy and her foot. Unfortunately it wasn’t enchanted and didn’t survive the process. Wood shards showered the altar and the high priest praying next to it. Viv and he looked at each other. He was the same one who’d tried to scold her after she freed Gil. It had been so long ago. Now he looked exhausted. Haunted.

“You…”

And in his eyes, she saw something that didn’t bode well: despair, tainted with hope. The same kind of hope a dying infantryman would express to a running medic.

On the altar, Oleander stared up with empty eyes. His entire left hand had gone full aberrant. It was a disgusting amalgam of cancerous flesh and jutting bones. Whatever had filled him with the crimson light of his goddess was fully gone.

“Holy shit.”

Wasn’t he Maranor’s chosen? Then what did it mean for her?

“Why didn’t you amputate? Any reason why you wouldn’t amputate?”

Viv was not panicking yet. Surely she could solve the problem by purging the entire altar of anything molecular.

“Well?”

The High Priest shook, gasped, then the gaze that found Viv was darker.

“It is… too late.”

The voice was female, known to Viv, yet a far cry from the powerful entity that had summoned her in her throne room. The corruption was now spreading across Oleander’s chest at an alarming rate, hastened by Viv’s arrival.

“He feels your coming. He is accelerating. I was wrong to think I could stop him. I was wrong to try and devour his might so I could rule.”

“Hmm, Maranor? Should I purge it? Quickly.”

“You won’t have the strength.”

Viv glared.

“Bet.”

A torrent of void energy engulfed the supine form, drowning it in a bath of pure annihilation. Viv felt the aberrant flesh give way. She had grown so powerful that even the magic-resistant flesh was not immune to her power now, except there was a lot of it. A reaaaaaally huge mass of it. It was just… not actually there. Yet. It was… beyond.

Shit that was a lot of meat to burn through. She blinked.

“Ok I lose the bet. What the —”

The walls of the sanctum disappeared to reveal the void of the in-between. The golden sun of Neriad and blue orb of Maradoc were there, as well as the purple, bladed soul of Efestar. The distant light of Sardanal pulsed in the far infinity. The presence of such massive souls gave Viv vertigo. And then she saw it: below Maranor’s red and black soul was a tether diving into the depths of the in-between — so far as the concept even made sense. It was rotten and defiled, yet stronger for it. A small portion of Maranor’s soul already carried the taint, though it was still limited.