Upon touching the heretic's corpse, blackness swallowed him. He was nowhere. The great crushing cold. But a fire blazed in his being–a thoughtless fury.

"Scourge, I am your enemy," Skippii beseeched the void. "Cosmipox. I name thee, and summon thee with challenge. Come out from hiding. Die. Burn to me. Burn!"

Gradually before him, in the vast emptiness, a wraithlike aspect shimmered into being; a human shape with six long arms sprouted from a sickly-silver form. It sparkled like many thousands of stars–merely grains of sand in its magnitude. Opaque halos twisted, forming runic shapes, undulating with abysmal power. Slowly, like the moving of the moon, its limbs unravelled. Where it touched, the void burned like liquid lightning. Then it opened its eyes. Eighteen piercing marbles, each as massive as the planet which humanity called its home; each a different colour of curses, and more which his mind convulsed to comprehend.

Revealed was the true form of Cosmipox. No longer did the incursor use the heretic magus as its vessel. It had been released, ethereal and fading without corporeal form. But for a time–short and eternal–it lingered, and Skippii lingered with it. They shared this blank space–two souls in the void. Abhorrent, was its manifestation. Sickening and terrible.

Cor.

Its voice whispered through the cold ether, almost imperceptible despite its magnitude. Beyond words, an impression submerged him: Skippii was to wait his turn; Cosmipox would come for the Primordials once the Gods were dealt with. None were safe. He was all the vastness beyond the sky, an inexorable tide which lapsed upon the planet. The end days would come. All life would perish, and cease. All lineage would come to an end. All memory, all souls, all futures. Vanish.

It has not yet come to pass. The voice of Cor resonated within Skippii, shaking his very bones. Forget not, your birthright, son.

Though he was submerged in darkness, Skippii felt the source beneath him. Reaching it, he drew it forth, relishing the heat in his flesh. Fires formed on flesh, burning the blackness. A shimmer of the world appeared behind the veil: the temple's marble steps, and the heretic magus' body, charred and crumbling in flames. A part of him was still there, whereas the rest of his mind was trapped in Cosmipox's lair.

Begone from this world. Skippii emitted his command into the void.

The immensity of Cosmipox whispered a response. Countless, I have claimed. All grows cold in the cycle of eternity.

Clenching his whole body, Skippii bowed to the earth and beseeched all of his strength. The ground trembled in response, and he felt it clearly underfoot. His mind was torn between the fires, and the cold void. No longer did he feel his breath. Rather, his body pulsated. A living flame, exploding with power. All was piled on the pyre. There was no stopping it now. Fires engulfed him.

A hand rested upon the nape of his neck–a woman's hand–soft and cool. Her touch steadied the inferno, but did not dampen its heat. Oyaltun–his paragon–and in her company, another of the Pantheon: Kylin, Stormstress, wreathed in thunder and a barely contained wrath.

"Skippii?" The voice sounded nearby. He could almost swear he'd spoken it from his own lips.

"Skippii? Where are you?"

"Kylinissa?" But as he spoke, his power ebbed. Wasted breath weakened the flames. The void darkened, impossibly deepening until it felt as though his soul would be swallowed and forgotten forever. Cosmipox neared, all eighteen eyes fixed upon him. A chill swept through him, challenging his fires, but he clung to his connection and drew magia from the earth.

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"Help," he uttered through gritted teeth.

Vision flashed in his mind–eyes that weren't his. He saw Nerithon's walls before him, and many hundreds of legionnaires. About were the Coven of Kylin, and she was among them.

"How?" Kylinissa said. He saw the face of Aetheria turn to her in puzzlement.

Then the image changed. He was in the eyes of Custos Maritor, falling away from the hilltop, where a black void had claimed the temple and courtyard, expanding evermore at their heels towards the city. Cosmipox was born into being, unrestrained by its vessel, and vengeful. The end of times had come.

And he was in the void, in the company of Gods. Two were by his side, one opposed them. His mind quailed, but his spirit did not give out. Reaching deep underground, he wrought the fires of Cor to the earth's surface with every vestige of his strength.

Bellow the flames. With the guiding hand of Oyaltun, he spoke directly into Kylinissa's mind. Kylin's winds. Now.

Another mind joined the fray, and another, until there were twelve. A second, he recognised: the girl with whom he had shared a mortal struggle. Aetheria, champion of the Coven of Kylin, drenched in all her hatred. She beheld him in his moment of great need, and spoke for all to hear.

With what powers combined we possess, scour the heretic.

Great winds swept through him, but they did not sting or displace. Their power fed his flames, bellowing the coals of a divine forge. The Stormstress' wrath and his own danced and wove a torrent of flames which rose as a tornado. A firestorm.

Further, he reached, until he brushed the very surface of Cor itself. His body burned–a heat beyond his ability to withstand. And still further he plunged, drawing an endless breath. A wreathing inferno, stripping his soul. And all the while, Oyaltun's hand remained on the nape of his neck–a guiding light, and Kylin's winds raged to his aid.

Darkness was annihilated.

His mind fractured, he was an ocean of power beneath the earth; he was its rising vents which spewed molten lava over the crust; he was the flame scattered on the wind; he was the embers smoking in the branches of trees; he was the soft ash, rising up, up to the clouds and drifting back to earth. He was the flame at the core of a vessel. A candle in a lamp. A tiny, temporary form, utterly spent. He was… He was…

Skippii opened his eyes. As the crystal light of the world shimmered into being, the visage of Cosmipox faded away. One by one, his eyes closed, and his arms receded. The darkness fled.

Breath. Cooling, life-bearing breath. Into his lungs. Out of his mouth….

Pain. Throbbing, relentless pain. Blistering his limbs. Punishing his organs…

Light. Charred marble and flickering shades, and all around him, embers and ash swirling in the coattails of a storm…

Skippii stared at a pair of hands dumbly. He recognised them. They were his. Then, he was alive and human again.

Nothing but ash remained of the heretic magus' corpse, nor his acolytes. The presence of Cosmipox was gone, but it left a cold imprint on his mind.

Turning, he sat atop the temple's steps, too tired to stand. All the courtyard was emptied of the corpses which had littered it. Nothing remained of the living. No heretic, nor Ürkün, nor legionnaire. The rains poured onto the flat mosaic stones, washing away the stench of death and clinging smoke. Then, through the clouds, ventured a ray of sunlight. He had not seen it so bright for days. Chrysaetos' gaze spread over the temple's courtyard and shone upon his face, warming his cheeks with a radiant glow. The God of the sun–having been returned his temple–imparted a fractional gratitude.

Meekly, Skippii glanced southward, and beheld a wondrous sight. Amongst the orchard, red cloaks returned to the hillside. It seemed he was wrong: the legionnaires had fled before Cosmipox's void. Then, atop the hill's crest rose the faces of his companeight.

Skippii let out a whimper of relief as tears welled in his eyes.

"Thank Gods you ran," he whispered, spotting Tenoris amongst the approaching crowd. The big legionnaire ran towards him on shaky legs, slipping in the rain like a newborn calf. The others helped him to his feet, but Tenoris reached the temple first, crawling hand over head up its steps to come desperately at his feet.

Skip," he sobbed. "Brother. We are alive."

"I thought…" A glimpse of Tenoris' limp body flashed in Skippii's mind.

"Bless you." Tenoris dragged him into a powerful embrace, pressing his face against his chest. Together, they breathed and cried, as all their companeight threw down their weapons and embraced them.

In the sunlight, surrounded by his fellows, the world did not seem so dark anymore. The stain of fear washed away, and Skippii breathed deeply, utterly depleted.

His friends fell to the steps one by one, but Tenoris held Skippii firmly in an embrace. The two of them watched together in silence as, in the distance, atop Nerithon's towers, legion flags were raised to the emerging sunlight. A grand cheer of victory rose to the sky.

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