Dei heard things through the wall, barely able to discern the intent behind words. Things were screamed, arguments were raised, and one person in particular felt more cornered. The nine sharks circled him as he fended for himself, but it seemed a foregone conclusion. Despite the image he held, Dei felt no pity for the one circled. He'd gambled his life, and lost.

The scene shifted, the words heard through the wall came through slightly louder, the barrier just slightly thinner. He heard various quiet conversations, but one voice in particular he recognized.

"They're doing rather well. I wonder if I can convince The Champion to take a look at… Wait, nobody say anything for a moment" Aloran said.

The mutterings went quiet for a few seconds, and Aloran became significantly louder, like he was talking straight into the wall.

"Dei how are you even in the Divine Realm? Wait, not as important, how did you get permission from the System to leave quarantine? I thought your transportation was going to fail! I just didn't want to discourage you."

Dei said nothing, as he couldn't really process information in his unconscious state.

"Ahh, you're having a prophetic vision, I get it now. Well, allow me to issue you a quest. Ever since I realized you'd succeeded in leaving the universe, I've collected a few messages from other Gods just in case I got in contact with you again. Take this packet of divinity to the universe at these coordinates, and deliver it to one of the cathedrals. A second packet should be placed on your soul afterwards, make sure to cart that back as well. Don't lose either packet!!!"

Dei felt something stick to his soul briefly and started to drift off, when Aloran quickly spoke up again.

"WAIT! Why is the packet of divinity absorbing outside faith!? Dei, are you killing a God right now!? All that faith energy will go to the local Gods if you do that! Like hell are they getting it from MY follower! Lemme just… Ah! Hold still! Just one…"

He felt his God struggle to reel him back in, trying desperately to grab his soul but feeling it slip away faster than he could stop it.

Still, Aloran seemed to succeed. "HA! Got it! Alright, the faith you collect will be yours, if you find something you like… free to buy… IF NOT, RETURN IT TO ME!"

Aloran shouted louder and louder as Dei's mind resubmerged into a dreamless unconsciousness, and he had no further visions.

* * *

His entire body felt distant as he briefly returned to consciousness, barely prying open his eyelids to glance around.

The shadow form of Perumah sat at the head of Wild Chains, staring out into the desert. When he looked at her, she briefly glanced back, saying "Still safe."

He didn't fight the exhaustion any longer. His soul and body would take a while to realign, and that time was best spent asleep.

* * *

Yawning, he groggily sat up, feeling the wind whip at his face as he did so. Wild Chains had locked him down while he was asleep, so he was at no risk of falling.

Perumah still sat in the same spot she had before, but she was fully turned around this time, facing him as she lounged at the head of his Leviathan.

Standing up and stretching, he asked "How long was I out?"

"About three days."

"Anything interesting happen?"

He distinctly felt amusement emanate from her. "Maybe."

"Mind sharing?"

"Sure. It's getting late anyway. Might be best if we wait until morning before attacking The Mother again. I believe she's weaker during the daylight hours."

* * *

By the end of her explanation, Dei was on the ground gasping for breath. With each revelation, his Profession jumped in levels. His soul hardened repeatedly as his Spiritual stat increased, and Dei got the distinct impression that he might be approaching the upper level of it.

That meant his Spiritual stat was closing in on five hundred… would any spells even work on him?

'I wonder if stats work the same as levels and classes, as in one hundred in a stat is something of a benchmark. Maybe a level one hundred person should have around one hundred in each stat, or something like that… if that's true, when I hit the cap of my Mythical profession, it'll require divine-level spells, those over level 500, to actually damage me. Or just really strong punches.'

His meteoric growth in his Profession was completely secondary though. The multiversal secrets Perumah uncovered occupied his mind completely. More importantly though, he found himself nervous for his part in potentially suppressing Zyz'Ti's invasion, should the time come.

'I… don't know if my pseudo affinity is up to the task. I will simply have to strengthen it until it is.'

When the changes in his soul were stabilized, his attention was drawn to a second development that'd happened when he was asleep. Aloran's new gift.

He'd stuck the packet of faith on Dei, but most of Dei was somewhere else. Without the main portion to hide the packet within its folds, he could actually see the payload he had been asked to carry to some universe.

It was a semisphere of burning light, akin to a miniature sun, near the base of Wild Chains' tail. It had no presence and at first he thought he couldn't sense it because it was an external source of mana, but Perumah said she, too, was completely blind to it in every way except visually.

Even passing his hand through it did absolutely nothing, telling Dei that mortals were simply incapable of interacting with faith.

'That also explains why The Champion was fine with letting me kill The Mother, and even excited for it. He assumes that he'll get a rather large windfall from her demise… Oh well, sucks to be him. According to Aloran, all this faith is mine!'

Aloran hadn't claimed a single iota of his bounty, saying it was all Dei's and that he would simply appreciate a fraction, rather than demand a piece of the pie. Even though Aloran was the only reason he would be able to collect the faith, he hadn't held it against him.

'Yea, I definitely gotta save a chunk of whatever I get specifically for Aloran.'

When he looked around for the secondary storage, where all the spare faith would go, Wild Chains brought attention to a loose ball of light, one much smaller.

This one wasn't attached and ingrained to the spell itself, but just… a loose construct that Wild Chains had to actually hold at the end of its pink and red chains. Dei actually could touch that one, and it was rather heavy, but he assumed that was because Aloran made it specifically for the purpose of Dei carrying it.

'Seems this one isn't as well refined as the other, which makes sense considering it was haphazardly done while I was slipping through his fingers. I'll just have to avoid dropping it I guess.'

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

They weren't really doing anything else in this layer, so Dei continued to ponder over the revelations Perumah shared with him, earning a small yet visible constant stream of experience for his Profession.

* * *

When they were ready, they started to make their way back to The Mother, discussing which path they thought she took. Since The Mother was a parasite to the Primordial, it made sense if she followed one of the twelve Celestial Parasite pathways. To back this up, she wasn't the first Mother, meaning that others could inherit the mantle

"So we've narrowed it down to… Primordial Cancer, Endless Revenant, Hatred's Call, Life Corrupt, and Parasite Within. That's honestly a lot," Dei said.

"Hm, yes, it would be less if you crossed off Endless Revenant. I do not think that is an option. That sounds like an undead, and The Mother is not an undead."

"But she's definitely not alive!" Dei insisted, "I've seen into the souls of Lunar Spawn, I don't think she has proper cells, and her DNA is all wonky! She's a virus at best."

"If she was never alive, she cannot be undead either. If she's a virus, I believe that would be closer to Life Corrupt."

Dei grumbled, begrudgingly agreeing with that point. "Alright alright fine, she's not the revenant one. Also, she definitely has a lot of hate going on in there, but I don't think that's her path to magic. I'm pretty sure hating sapients is more of a hobby, so I'd cross out Hatred's Call."

"I agree. I also believe we can remove Primordial Cancer, as she is not entirely reliant on the Primordial to live. She is reliant on outside life, yes, but I believe she was most powerful when siphoning off the Primordial because the original Earth Primordial was simply a powerful life form. So it is either Life Corrupt or Parasite Within."

"I dunno, I'm leaning more towards Parasite Within. True, she's a facsimile of life, but so are demons and- apparently- Zyz'Ti. I think the Moon Primordial's touch just does that. Not to mention, she made an entire realm based around parasitizing the minds of every living being on the planet. That's pretty in line with Parasite Within, as it's a parasite within their minds."

"What of her ability to endlessly reproduce? The creation of monsters? I believe she corrupts the minds of monsters, twisting them to her will to fuel her endless army and the continuous war she holds against sapients. Actually, I am slightly curious, does The Mother actually hate demons? Since she is also a descendent of the Moon Primordial, would she not take the other side?"

"Hmm, that's a good question, but judging by how I haven't heard any stories of her assisting the demon, I think she's more neutral. Perhaps because demons aren't real descendents of the Moon Primordial, more like they're piggybacking off its magic. It's like… they're the step-children of the Moon, and she's their step-aunt or something, and she's never really interacted with them that much, you know? She's probably like 'Ehh they're sapients but ehhh they're followers of the Moon, I'll just let them be and see how it plays out' kinda thing."

"I would agree with such an assessment. Back to the original point. Life Corrupt or Parasite Within?"

"Well we know that only Lunar Spawn can embark down the path, as only direct descendents of The Mother are capable of inheriting the Lunar Spawn title so… Wait yea, actually, that means it has to be Parasite Within. Cause what life is she corrupting? Or corrupt of? You've gotta be a descendent of the Moon to take her path, and at that point it's just life. I think it's Parasite Within."

"Hmm… I will tentatively agree with your assessment."

"Nice. We got three down, I wonder what the others are. Honestly, The First Nightmare sounds the craziest to me."

Perumah scoffed, "Truly? You wish to see The First Nightmare over Collapsing Horizon? What does it matter if…"

Kicking off another round of discussion, they passed the time chatting with each other as they approached their portal to the next layer.

* * *

"Ooookay" Dei said, glancing over the wing of Wild Chains and into the ginormous sinkhole, many miles across.

Clear as day, there was the former mother, though she wriggled and writhed, continuously letting spikes slough off her and crack on the ground, hatching many Lunar Spawn, though they were simply memories. They helped shield the true soul defense Lunar Spawn through "Needle in a haystack" tactics, but Dei simply had to fly them around for a moment and see which fired slow-moving balls of acid at them to mark which ones were lethal.

There were ten "head" guards around the Former Mother, but none of them were really important except one, so they focused on their target: The Current Mother, whose name they really had to learn.

She was just as they'd seen last time, humanoid with a blender on one arm and a spike on the other. Perumah read her emotions from the sky, telling Dei she got a rather silly response.

"I don't think she actually has a mind here… she's just acting on orders. She has orders to keep everything that isn't a Lunar Spawn away, patrol the nest, and really that's it. She sees us, and is even trying to send out inquiries to the Former Mother, but the Former Mother is, of course, not responding, as she is not real. Because of that, the Current Mother is just… ignoring us. She has no orders to chase things outside the nest, and it is not within the machinations of her mind to form an independent thought."

"I see. Well, we only need to get in range for something like half a second, and she did move fast, but not faster than magically infused beings like me and you."

"Didn't seem to stop her before," Perumah remarked.

"Ha ha, real funny. She caught me off guard once, and I don't exactly remember you stepping in or reacting in time."

"It was in the past. Let's not bring it up any longer."

"You're the one who- okay, whatever, let's stop talking about it. Either way, hold on tight. I'm just charging her and diving straight in."

Perumah nodded, and Dei did exactly as he said he would. He didn't take it at a direct angle, curving himself parallel to the ground because he knew he'd end up coming out at the same spot locationally, and he would just slam into the ground if he dove headfirst, but it was still rather easy.

The Mother raised her blade and charged directly at them, ready to strike. The moment she was close enough though, Wild Chains tilted his body and swam around her arm, plunging into her chest and pulling both Dei and Perumah along for the ride.

When they were through, Wild Chains curved upwards, going for the sky to reassess their situation.

The hive was abuzz, and Dei saw they were in a second battle- this one closer to a war than the insurgence the previous one was. In the distance, he saw a ten-thousand strong army of flying soldiers, purple bolts of artillery exploding into the swarm of Lunar Spawn. They pushed as far as they could, but Dei knew it was doomed to fail. They were trying to out-number infinity, their power was simply too diluted.

Ignoring them, he found The Mother's humanoid avatar once more standing ready near the miles-long queen, who was much smaller at this point. They were likely getting close to The Mother's birth.

Following the same tactic he had before, he shot downwards, curved, and found himself in the next layer-

He was pressed into the ground by a force he had no chance of resisting. Wild Chains crashed into the ground, and he even saw the form of Perumah in his periphery begin scattering on the ground, unable to hold herself together under the pressure.

'The Mother doesn't have the strength of soul to exert this… another memory of a natural disaster? What are we caught in?'

Straining every muscle, he rolled his body over, seeing hundreds of Lunar Spawn crushed to paste, even The Mother's avatar and the queen she served unable to move, flat against the ground. The Mother's avatar lay face down, unable to even twitch.

Falling flat on his back he looked to the sky, feeling everything stutter.

Chaos. True chaos incarnate formed an aurora as far as the eye could see, unstoppable. Insatiable. Through the shifting colors and shapes, Dei saw two grand eyes boring into his mind, and realized there was a figure in the center of the storm. Chaos swirled around him, but it felt… afraid. The chaos bent to his will, but it dared not touch him.

The aura felt more dangerous than even The Champion by no small margin, so he'd assumed this man was the Primordial of Earth but that couldn't possibly be true. This was no Primordial, this was a Primordial slayer.

Skin black as coal, his eyes glowed a vibrant deep purple, seeming to open a gateway into a realm beyond understanding.

His clothes were woven golden threads, purple scenes embroidered in intricate patterns, even those Dei could not comprehend. The very clothes upon this man were beyond his understanding.

He sat upon a floating prismatic crystal throne floating high in the air, the golden crown upon his head marking him as a ruler.

Despite his grand presence, Dei saw only boredom on his face. His eyes half-lidded, stature relaxed as he leaned on his fist, arm resting on the side of his throne, looking down upon Dei and the rest of the lunar spawn, like he observed an interesting bug.

"Why shouldn't I kill you?" he asked the air, and Dei felt the force of a titanic thought emanate from the queen Lunar Spawn. If that were directed at him, he had no doubt he would be eviscerated, but it barely seemed to make its way through the storm of chaos to convey her message to the king.

"I am below your notice. My kind are resistant to chaos, but we cannot retaliate. You would only waste your time," The queen responded.

The king looked down upon her for a heartbeat more, before the throne turned around and lazily floated away, the storm of chaos following deferentially behind him.

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