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Nox ran as fast as he could, his legs pumping desperately across the broken glass plain, but it was too late. The Avatar of the Skin God had already reached the corpse of the Avatar of the Obsidian God. Her multiple mouths opened wide like blooming flowers of hunger, and she began to chew and eat and tear at the massive divine body with savage desperation.
The sound was horrific the wet tearing of flesh mixed with the grinding of obsidian against teeth, creating a symphony of consumption that made Nox's stomach turn. Black ichor flowed like rivers from the corpse as she devoured it piece by piece.
Nox pulled the trigger of his revolver, his blood infused ammunition streaking through the air toward the feeding monster.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets hit the body of the Skin God with explosive force. His Body of Horror ability activated automatically, and the bullets made from his own blood began to dissolve parts of her patchwork flesh on contact. They tore seven huge gaping holes in her body, each one large enough to put a fist through.
But she didn't care. She didn't even pause in her feeding. The wounds began to close almost immediately as she absorbed more divine essence from the Obsidian God's corpse. Her stolen flesh writhed and shifted, repairing itself with supernatural speed.
Nox continued to fire until his vision began to blur. His blood pressure had dropped to dangerous levels as he literally fired his life force at the enemy. His knees buckled beneath him, and he knelt down on the broken glass as all strength left his body. His hands shook as he tried to reload, but his fingers wouldn't respond properly.
It was already too late.
The body of the Avatar of the Skin God began to transform as she consumed the last pieces of divine flesh. Her form started to change, growing larger and more terrible with each passing second.
Where once she had been a patchwork of stolen human skins, she now became something far more horrific. Her body stretched and elongated, taking on an insectoid quality that defied human comprehension. Multiple arms sprouted from her torso, each one ending in claws that could tear through stone. Her legs became jointed and spider-like, lifting her towering form high above the ground.
Her head transformed into something that belonged in nightmares. Multiple red eyes opened across what had once been a human face, each one blinking independently and tracking different targets. Her mouth expanded into a gaping maw filled with rows of teeth that had been taken from every creature she had ever consumed. A long, segmented tail grew from her spine, ending in a stinger that dripped with venom.
The fusion of the two divine essences had created something that was neither fully Skin God nor Obsidian God, but a new horror that combined the worst aspects of both. She stood over the battlefield like a monument to cosmic horror, her form shifting and changing as the conflicting divine energies settled into their new configuration.
"You deceitful bastard!" The Avatar of the Skin God looked at Nox, her multiple eyes burning with fury and her voice echoing from several throats at once.
Then Nox's vision shifted without warning.
.
.
.
"Huh? Where am I?"
He found himself looking down at a headless body in front of him. It was wearing a Victorian style suit that looked disturbingly familiar, the same elegant attire he had been wearing moments before. The body lay crumpled on the glass, blood pooling around the severed neck.
"Was that... my body?"
At that moment, the terrible realization hit him like a physical blow. He had been decapitated. His perspective had shifted because his head was no longer attached to his body.
The Avatar of the Skin God was holding his severed head in one of her newly grown claws, her transformed face leering down at him with malicious satisfaction.
"No, no, no, no!" Nox's voice came out as a whisper, his vocal cords barely functioning without the support of his body.
The reality of his situation crashed over him like a tidal wave of pure terror. This was it. This was how he died. Not in some heroic battle, not saving someone he cared about, but alone and defeated, watching his own corpse grow cold on a field of broken glass.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die."
The words poured out of him in an endless stream of desperate denial, each repetition becoming weaker as his consciousness began to fade. The fear was overwhelming, primal, absolute. Every survival instinct he possessed was screaming against the approaching darkness.
And then, as his vision began to dim and his thoughts became scattered, a different emotion rose up to replace the terror. Something darker, more corrosive than fear.
"Hateful. Hateful. Hateful. "
Pure, concentrated hatred flowed through his fading consciousness like poison. Hatred for the creature that had deceived them. Hatred for his own weakness. Hatred for the cosmic forces that had brought him to this moment. Hatred for every choice that had led him here.
The hatred was so intense it felt like it might burn away what little remained of his life force. It was the last emotion he would ever feel, and it consumed him completely as darkness closed in around his vision.
In the distance, he could hear the Avatar of the Skin God laughing with her multiple voices, celebrating her victory over the foolish human who had dared to challenge a cosmic entity.
And then there was….nothing.