Kitti didn't realise it at the time, but she would be one of very few mortals who had ever witnessed the birth of a god.
She watched in shock as white fire erupted from the carved symbols along Ophryon's skin, bursting through his flesh in jagged, luminous fractures. His body glowed like molten glass cracking under impossible heat, threads of raw divinity weaving themselves through every break.
His skin peeled away like falling ash.
Beneath it, a towering figure of pale, shimmering bone and without flesh emerged, taller by the second. His spine elongated, vertebrae transforming into carved stone-like segments filled with shifting light. His ribs opened and closed like the petals of a mechanical flower, each movement radiating power.
His single white-flame eye widened, fracturing, splitting into rings upon rings of concentric divine shapes.
Kitti felt the air rip out of her lungs.
Slowly, Ophryon looked over himself, hands raised to observe them. His skeletal form was much smaller than his original size, standing somewhere around eight feet tall. No longer the giant that he was.
The walls trembled violently, red crystals bursting like overripe fruit. Shards flew in all directions as raw power detonated outward in invisible waves. The entire chamber bowed under it, bending like the spine of a creature forced to kneel.
Ophryon rose.
His feet no longer touched the swamp.
The corrupted blood pool reacted violently, rippling upward in spirals that wrapped around him like serpents worshipping their creator. Faces of the devoured dead shimmered across the muck, dozens, hundreds of them, stretching toward him with silent praise.
Just as quickly as they wrapped around him, the corrupted blood surged upward, flooding into him in violent, pulsing waves. It streamed through every exposed bone, filling the hollow framework of his ribs as though he were an ancient vessel being restored.
The others watched, frozen between awe and horror, as the blood twisted and reshaped itself inside his skeletal frame. First came organs, glowing, translucent constructs that pulsed with a blinding, transcendent white. They floated into place with unnatural precision, threading themselves together as if following a blueprint older than the dungeon itself.
Veins spiraled outward next, branching like radiant rivers beneath forming tissue. Intestines coiled into existence, soft and luminous, followed by muscles weaving themselves in thick cords across his growing form. Then, at last, flesh wrapped around everything, layer after layer, smoothing, tightening, sealing the divine anatomy beneath.
Skin followed in a final sweep, pale and perfect, unmarred except for the divine radiance leaking through it like cracks of starlight.
All the while, his glowing shape hovered effortlessly above the ground, the swamp now drained entirely dry, its floor cracked open like scorched earth. Power poured off him in shimmering waves that heated the air, bending it around his forming body.
As if acknowledging the completion of his transformation, robes manifested around him, flowing garments woven of light and ancient shadow, draping across his shoulders and billowing in a wind no one else could feel.
When the illumination settled, he stood revealed.
He looked almost human now, large, towering, broad-shouldered, yet unmistakably otherworldly. His skin glowed faintly from within, every inch of him pulsing with newborn divinity.
And in the center of his face, unchanged and yet magnified in presence, burned his single fractal eye, a massive, ever-shifting sphere of concentric patterns and celestial fire.
"I… am reborn." Ophryon's voice rolled through the chamber, and through the dungeon itself.
Kitti felt the words strike her skull like hundreds of hammers, pounding in a rhythm that was somehow both agonizing and eerily melodic. It hurt, sharp, ringing pain that made her vision blur, yet some irrational part of her mind felt grateful to hear such a divine sound.
"What the fuck…?" she groaned, stumbling sideways until she leaned against the Shielder's armored shoulder.
She wasn't alone. All around her, Shade, Bekhan, Bone, Daisy, and their remaining party members buckled under the weight of Ophryon's voice, clutching their heads or dropping to their knees.
Only three people stood unaffected.
The Shielder. As well as the twins, Mai and Yui.
They remained upright, steady and unflinching, like mortals carved of stone.
"W... What?" Kitti gasped as another pulse of divine resonance slammed through her skull, making her ears ring even louder. "What do we do? Shielder?"
The Shielder leaned closer, whispering so quietly she barely caught the words. "I think it's best if the rest of you leave the room. The twins and I will handle this."
Kitti's eyes flew wide. "What?" she hissed sharply. "And leave you three alone? We can't..."
The Shielder shook his head, eyes never leaving Ophryon. "You'd only hold us back."
Kitti bristled, fists clenching. "Even if you are champions, that is a god standing right there. He's ascended..."
The Shielder cut her off, voice low and firm.
"You saw what happened to Jean. He killed him just by taking his name. And that was before he became a god. Now? He could kill any of you even easier."
His grip tightened on his shield. "I'm as hard to kill as they come. And I can protect the twins if it's just us. They're the only ones here who have the raw offensive power to put this thing down."
Kitti felt the words sink into her like cold water. She wanted to argue, to scream that they should stay, to refuse to abandon them, but the Shielder wasn't even looking at her. His entire focus was locked on the newborn deity.
He had already made his decision.
Swallowing the rising panic, Kitti nodded and backed away, stumbling toward Shade. She quickly explained the Shielder's plan in a hushed rush.
Shade looked past her, toward the Shielder. Their eyes met. The Shielder gave him a single, curt nod.
Shade exhaled, resigned.
With a sharp gesture, he signaled Bone. The rogue was already moving before Shade even finished the motion, slipping through the adventurers and relaying the plan with quick, precise whispers.
Within seconds, everyone knew. And within seconds, the room shifted.
Almost as quickly, Ophryon noticed the shift in the room. His gaze snapped toward the farthest adventurer, an older man lingering closest to the entrance.
"Leaving so soon?"
||Cover Move||
The shielder materialized in front of the man in a blur, shield raised just in time. White flames erupted across its surface, roaring hungrily as they tried, and failed, to consume the indestructible barrier. The fire cascaded down its edges like liquid light, hissing against the stone floor.
"Leave now!" the shielder bellowed, voice booming through the chamber. All pretense of caution was abandoned.
The adventurers didn't hesitate. At the sight of the blazing shield and the god-form staring them down, they turned and sprinted toward the entrance, boots hammering against the ground as the room trembled around them.
"Girls!" The shielder yelled in retaliation.
The twins kicked into motion, both vanishing in a blur of speed.
Mai arrived first, her hammer already swinging at the newly born deity. However, the instant before the weapon connected, his newly formed body turned translucent, as though reality itself politely stepped aside to let him ignore physical harm. The hammer cleaved through the afterimage he left behind, detonating the far wall into a spiderweb of cracks.
A shockwave rippled through the chamber, shaking loose slabs of stone from above.
Before Mai could recover her footing, he reached toward the back of her neck, fingers glowing with spiraling fractal symbols.
||Cover Move||
The Shielder was already in position, his massive shield rising instinctively between Ophryon's hand and Mai's neck. The white flames along its surface flickered violently, casting eerie shadows across the chamber as he braced against the deity's looming presence.
Ophryon took a small, deliberate step back, tilting to the side as another hammer swung past him with thunderous force. The weapon cut through the air, leaving streaks of light, but the god's movements were measured, almost casual, as though he barely noticed the assault.
Yui appeared behind him in the blink of an eye, hammer raised, the motion fluid and practiced.
With an air of casual confidence bordering on arrogance, Ophryon lashed out with a backhanded punch toward the girl. His fist connected not with flesh but with the Shielder's cheek. The impact detonated outward in a sonic shockwave, bending the air with violent pressure, drawing a streak of crimson from the armor's seam.
The Shielder's face seemed to cave in under the force, but he staggered only briefly before launching forward, forehead smashing into Ophryon's nose. Another shockwave ripped through the chamber, dust and shards of cracked stone raining down as Ophryon stumbled back, staggered but not broken.
The deity recoiled into the swinging hammers of the twins, two towering, human-shaped weapons hurtling toward him with relentless precision. But Ophryon's awareness was instantaneous. In the next heartbeat, his form shimmered and went transparent, the hammers cutting through nothing but air, meeting no resistance.
A trickle of white blood dribbled from his nose, marking the only sign of the brief contact, as he stepped back and distanced himself with a fluid, effortless motion.
"I don't have time to tussle with mortals," he muttered, his voice echoing like a bell struck in a cathedral, low and measured. "I must hurry."
The chamber itself seemed to respond to his urgency. With a sudden roar, Ophryon unleashed a blinding wave of white energy, shockwaves radiating outward and shattering the stone beneath the three. Each pulse lifted shards and dust into the air like a storm, the raw force pressing against them with unrelenting weight.
They fought to resist, straining against the push, their bodies straining against the raw divinity, but the force was too great. One by one, the three were sent skidding back, arms flailing to keep balance, their boots gouging the cracked floor.
Ophryon hovered at the center of the crater he had carved from stone and swamp, arms raised to the ceiling, robes fluttering as if caught in an unseen wind. His single, fractal eye burned with radiant intensity.
"Great Powers of Old!" he bellowed, his voice rolling through the chamber, rattling the remaining walls. "Acknowledge me!"
The air itself seemed to thrum, the very stones vibrating as if responding to a call older than the dungeon itself, and the adventurers could only stare, struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the force that had just been unleashed.
Whoom.
It felt as though the sky itself had suddenly collapsed onto the earth.
The shielder groaned as the pressure crushed downward, forcing him onto his hands and knees. It wasn't just weight, it was the sheer mass of reality being dragged downward, dense and suffocating, like the world had been folded in half on top of them.
Behind him, however, the twins only grunted, their boots grinding into the fractured stone but refusing to buckle. They remained upright through sheer stubbornness and raw physicality.
"What's going on now?" Mai demanded, breath sharp, six additional hammers flickering into existence around her. Ethereal hands held each of them aloft in a hovering semi-circle, glowing with dangerous promise.
"I don't know, sis, but I really wish Maple were here," Yui said, her tone almost a whine but still focused. Six of her own spectral hammers appeared in perfect sync, orbiting her like a miniature armory. "She'd know what to do."
The twins were done playing around.
The shielder let out a shaky chuckle from the ground. "You know… now that you mention it…" He braced an elbow under him, still being crushed toward the floor. "Who here wants to bet this is somehow Maple's fault?"
Before anyone could answer, or laugh, or groan, the air in front of them screamed.
Reality shuddered, twisting violently as if something massive and unwelcome was clawing its way through it.
Rrrip.
A fracture tore open above Ophryon, jagged and raw, leaking golden light through its broken edges. The brilliance spilled outward across the chamber in blinding waves, refracting off stone and lingering ash.
From the tear in space, a single column of golden radiance speared downward, connecting fracture to floor with the force and finality of a divine decree.
And then they stepped through.
Three figures descended along the beam of light.
The twins and the shielder instinctively threw up their arms to block the radiance, the first two figures were impossibly bright, their forms barely visible behind the searing gold that clung to them like armor. They were silhouettes of divinity, too luminous for mortal eyes to fully comprehend.
The third figure behind them, however… They could look at her.
Her presence was still immense, still wrong, still otherworldly, but tolerable. Mortal eyes didn't burn trying to meet her shape.
The golden fracture pulsed once, sealing partway behind them, as if even the universe struggled to hold the doorway open for beings such as these.
One of the two golden forms stepped forward before speaking.
"How strange. To have the birth of two ascendants so close together."When the god spoke, it did not come out as words. It arrived as intent, a pressure, an expression, a feeling with such immense weight that it trembled through the air. And yet, somehow, the Shielder and the twins still understood every syllable as clearly as spoken language.
Ophryon seemed to recover from his initial caution. Confidence settled into his posture as he stepped forward. "I have raised myself into your ranks. An ascendant."
The second golden being responded immediately. "Yes, you have. Not unusual during the Age of Knowledge… but unheard of in the current era."
The first golden being continued. "We have not had an ascendant in thousands of years. And now we receive two… so close together."
They gestured toward the third figure, clearly the second ascendant they spoke of.
She appeared to be a young girl no older than fourteen, with striking violet hair that cascaded in soft waves and eyes of gleaming gold. Her dark gown flowed around her as though woven from the night sky itself.
She had not spoken since her arrival, simply watching the exchange with quiet intensity, her gaze lingering on Ophryon more than the others.
"Come," the first golden being said, extending a hand toward Ophryon. "There is much to discuss, if you are to join the ranks of..."
"No."
The word cut through the air like a blade.
The third being finally spoke. Unlike the first two, whose voices were nothing more than heavy, divine instincts pressed into the mind, hers was normal. Clear. Smooth. Melodic. So sweet it felt almost poisonous.
The two golden beings turned to her.
"No?" the second one echoed.
Ophryon took a slow step toward her, curiosity flickering across his single fractal eye.
"I understand that you are a new god, like myself. I am Ophryon..."
His words died instantly.
The girl raised her hand and placed it gently against his face.
Her golden eyes narrowed.
"You're not Mother."