Mora was probably sick.
Ever since he ran into Skyl, his body hadn't been the same. Not only was his vigor failing and his eyesight growing dim, even his thoughts had become stagnant and lifeless.
The plane of Apocrypha had once been an unusually pure domain. Those who pursued knowledge came here, wandered through the miserable libraries, and leafed through books accumulated since time immemorial—only to be gradually assimilated, twisted into silent, strange Daedric creatures.
Mora collected knowledge and devoted himself to turning knowledge into mysteries: erasing those who knew, burying ancient ruins. This terrifying hoarder's obsession followed the world's mechanism of forgetting. Every civilization is fated to be lost one day; every brilliance is fated to wither. Hermaeus Mora merely carried out that natural law faithfully—this was his nature, and also his divine office.
Yet just as Azura can grow weary of the mortal world's endless cycles, Mora too began to lose interest in this dull universe. Searching for something truly valuable in an ocean of books was like panning for gold—once in a long while, a mortal would appear who amused him, but those fleeting sparks could never satisfy his hunger for understanding.
Skyl's appearance was an unexpected delight to the gods of this world.
And none were more thrilled than Hermaeus Mora.
He took control of Miraak's followers and ordered them to search for Skyl.
What happened afterward, everyone already knew.
The Daedric essence torn from Mora became The Tower of Tomes.
That sky-piercing library of The Tower of Tomes was undoubtedly born from Skyl's inspiration, mixed with Mora's divinity. Precisely because of that, it could help Skyl grasp knowledge at breathtaking speed and sail smoothly along the path of magical exploration.
If some other Daedric Prince had found Skyl first back then, his divine realm would have taken on a different shape. Perhaps he would have walked another road—perhaps become a warrior, a shaman, a beastman, a vampire, and the like.
But it was the Prince of Knowledge who could not wait to reach him. Fate's gift arrived at just the right time, and in just the right form.
Contact with Skyl left Mora with pain that stretched far into the future. Those spreading, proliferating blue doorways had once rewritten and devoured Mora's very existence. After severing a part of himself to survive, Mora fell into weakness—and strange phenomena began to appear within his realm.
Both were places that stored secrets, yet Apocrypha and The Tower of Tomes could not be more different in style.
Inside The Tower of Tomes lay endless hexagonal corridors—orderly, neat, suffused with a severe rationality.
In Apocrypha, everything looked as though it had caught a madness: chaotic, unordered, messy and lax. That frenzied posture felt closer to the universe's origin.
Across the endless black ocean floated islands as numerous as stars. Each was a small library, storing tens of thousands of books; here one could find knowledge of the past and the future alike. But ever since Mora grew weak, many islands had sunk into the sea. Precious volumes soaked through, rotting into blurred pulp—proof that Mora's memories were being forgotten.
His power was declining. The dreadful luminous neural network in the sky gradually dimmed. In a few conspicuous places, blue doorways that didn't belong forced themselves open against the surrounding landscape, like some kind of pustule infecting the whole plane. That was the lingering power of Skyl's mark—like a parasite sunk into the bone, impossible to shake off, still weakening Mora day by day, relentless and undying.
Lady Moonshadow had heard rumors of Mora's condition, but seeing Apocrypha with her own eyes still made her click her tongue.
"Poor idiot. That lesson is a big one."
A mass of black vortex-cloud descended from the sky. Tentacles stretching thousands of feet writhed and spasmed within the whirlpool. It was the Daedric Prince's manifestation—but he did not descend before Skyl's group. He halted far away.
"Leave!" Mora's tone was harsh. "Apocrypha has no place for you to exist!"
Neloth asked in a low voice, "He looks pretty angry. How about we leave first and come back another day?"
Skyl walked to the edge of the island and shouted up at the sky. "Mora, I'm here to negotiate."
"I have nothing to say to you. Leave!" In the distant firmament, the sickly green tentacles lashed wildly, like the struggle of someone trapped in a nightmare.
"You have no way to expel me. I already know where your realm of Oblivion lies. To me, this place is freely entered and freely left."
The tentacle-mass in midair exploded with rage. Each swing stirred a gale like invisible colossal blades that tore open the black sea. Towering waves surged from the horizon like moving mountain ranges, trying to drag the island down into lightless depths.
Before the wrath of a Daedric Prince, even someone as bold as the Dragonborn couldn't help shrinking his neck. Brelyna stood rigid with nerves, sweat beading on her cheeks. Dumbledore remained calm, simply stepping half a pace forward as if to shelter everyone. Aranea murmured a prayer to Azura. Neloth's eye twitched; a heavy shield sprang from his brass automaton armor, ready to take the impact.
Only Lady Moonshadow and Skyl stayed truly composed.
When the immense waves neared the island, they abruptly lost all forward force and crashed down with a thunderous boom, as if an invisible giant hand had pressed them back onto the surface.
Skyl turned his head and said, "Lady Moonshadow, please look after everyone. I'm going to speak with Mora alone."
With that, he cast a flight enchantment on himself and shot upward toward the sky.
"Be careful, Mage Skyl!" everyone shouted, waving from the island.
Neloth lowered his shield, his face grave. "You're really letting him go challenge Mora alone?"
"Mage Skyl will be fine," Brelyna said, steadying herself. "Let's go find Miraak. He still owes Winterhold those dragon souls—he'll have to hand them over."
After entering Apocrypha, Skyl sensed a peculiar kind of warmth—like coming home.
This realm had been infected by his door-shaped sigil. The power of The Tower of Tomes was seeping into this time and space; clearly, Mora had no good solution for it.
As Skyl flew, he passed a floating island and saw it crowded with countless blue portals. He hovered outside it, sensing an abnormal flow of time. Mora had turned this island into a quarantine zone—time here stood still. Yet the blue portals still continued to split and mirror themselves without end.
This nameless power had pierced the Daedric Prince's defenses, leaving him helpless. Like a prophecy, it pronounced Mora's death sentence. Even if that sentence might take tens of trillions of years to carry out, to eternity it was only a fleeting glance.
"Mora. Let's talk. About the grudges between us—it's time to end this."
A black vortex appeared ahead of the floating island. From its center spilled countless cloudy eyeballs like foam and spray. Hundreds upon hundreds of oily green, slick tentacles stretched along the vortex's edge—Mora's habitual form: a terrifying, inhuman alien god, as bleak and oppressive as outer space and the deep sea.
"You!" Mora's voice was dark and tense. "What more do you want? Do you not fear that I may fight to the death?"
"Listen carefully, Mora. You and I had no hatred, no feud. You were the one who came looking for me," Skyl said flatly. "I know you won't feel ashamed, but you have to admit you brought this on yourself."
The tentacles in the vortex convulsed with anger, but Mora forced his tone back into an even calm. "So you have thoughts about my destiny now. Oh, fortunate mortal… you were never worthy to stand among us as an equal. You stole a god's power—I can feel it. Part of you is made of my flesh and blood."
Skyl found Mora's stubborn bravado genuinely funny. "If a man eats cattle and sheep, does his blood start running with cattle and sheep? Mora, stop trying to claim kinship with me. I could ignore you and let you weaken bit by bit, until you wither away. I just think that's inefficient. If something is destined anyway, then let it arrive sooner—why invite needless complications? I can let you escape the ending of annihilation and preserve your precious self-awareness."
"What do you want?" Mora's tone rose slightly.
"Your realm. Your hoard of secrets," Skyl replied calmly. "And you, yourself."
"Arrogant!!!" Hermaeus Mora unleashed a dreadful roar like the death of a pod of whales.
The next instant, endless gales—carrying catastrophic destructive elements like a natural disaster—surged from the edge of the world, determined to erase Skyl's body and soul alike.
The desolate sky, enraged.
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