Jaime watched with a cool, detached gaze as devastation unfolded beneath him.

  His spear, wreathed in the faith of the dead, had carved a bowl several meters wide and a few feet deep into the earth. Within that crater, black skeletons were born from condensed faith. His detached feathers burrowed somewhere within the writhing shadows, anchoring the phenomenon and enabling the continuous birth of the dead.

  Darkness reached upward with pitch-black claws.

  The skeletal hands grasped at the abomination’s chitin, digging into the reed-basket-sized hole torn through its thorax.

  The creature shrieked incessantly. Ichor spewed from the wound in endless streams. Pale flesh and glistening organs beneath the shattered chitin were seized by decaying hands and disintegrated under their corroding grip—corruption returning to zero.

  It did not matter how violently the monstrosity attempted to escape the bowl.

  Death had firmly embraced it.

  It thrashed against the ground and crushed skeletons beneath its bulk, but more replaced them instantly. The dead clung to it with relentless persistence. Its wails grew weaker. Its struggle became visibly futile as skeletal fingers burrowed into its organs and tore.

  Only its concentrated corruption kept it alive.

  Every chunk of viscera ripped free was swiftly replaced, corruption knitting it back together—yet each regeneration faded slightly, weakened as more of its essence was dragged into nothingness.

  Jaime clicked his teeth in irritation.

  He had failed to kill it in a single blow.

  His cold gaze sharpened as he analyzed the impossibility. His calculations had been flawless. Cimikora had confirmed the outcome. There had been no room for error.

  His brooding drew immediate irritation from Mictlantecuhtli, who had lent his strength for the attack. The god nagged him mercilessly. Wasted energy was not something even a death god possessed infinitely—unless Jaime intended to reap enough souls to replenish what had been spent.

  Cimi joined in soon after.

  Her shrill screeching filled his mind as she denied any fault in the miscalculation. A vein pulsed at Jaime’s temple as he clenched his jaw hard enough to ache.

  He had believed his predictions infallible.

  The embarrassment was unavoidable.

  So he moved to correct it.

  An obsidian macuahuitl formed in his grasp. Slowly, deliberately, he etched each obsidian blade with pictograms of the dead—his most familiar sigil, the one that yielded the greatest power.

  Jaime narrowed his divine sight and urged Cimi to assist him in divining the optimal outcome. Redirecting her anger into focus, the spirit bird traced the flow of corruption within the abomination’s body. She followed its currents, its concentrations, its defensive instincts.

  Every detail fed into Jaime’s calculations.

  This next strike had to be the last.

  Otherwise, the mockery from both patron and guide would be unbearable.

  The golden light in his eyes flared as he saw it—the weakness. The inevitable end.

  His macuahuitl began to buzz with golden divinity, only for it to be slowly consumed by a swelling cloud of laughing skulls. Cruelty glimmered within their hollow sockets. Their malicious intent coalesced into something savage.

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  Some even snapped at him as he infused the weapon with a fragment of life.

  Jaime strained against the vicious faith as he forced it to condense further. He pushed the macuahuitl to become an extension of himself—an embodiment of zero.

  The process would have worked perfectly if he had time to nurture it, to allow the weapon to mature beyond its nascent state.

  He did not.

  He needed it now.

  The macuahuitl would likely survive only this battle. Fortunately, the obsidian base was stable enough that he could craft another later.

  Preferably one less… bitey.

  Jaime groaned as his divinity strained under the immense density of faith he was compressing. His control wavered dangerously; the conflicting energies threatened to detonate and annihilate him along with his target.

  Thankfully, Mictlantecuhtli intervened.

  Laughing all the while.

  Jaime flared with both radiant divinity and the murky faith of the dead. The opposing powers clashed violently before the dead faith consumed the brilliance entirely. The looming darkness thickened as it fed upon golden light, subsuming its volatility.

  The laughter in his mind grew louder.

  Then Jaime dove.

  He descended like an executioner, macuahuitl raised to bisect the monstrous insect below. The weapon had grown horrifying skulls along its length, and as he fell, they tore free from the blade.

  They followed close behind him, cackling with the same unbridled laughter Mictlantecuhtli unleashed within Jaime’s mind.

  -

  Sol dashed as far back as he could after sensing the threat from above. His eyes never left the abomination that had been lazily toying with him moments before.

  Its demeanor though, changed the instant the deadly energy descended.

  Huehueteotl perceived everything in slow motion. The creature flared with an overwhelming surge of corruption before shifting slightly to the left—just enough to avoid the full brunt of the black spear’s annihilating force.

  The destruction was redirected into the earth instead. The ground caved inward, forming the massive bowl from which silhouettes of the once-living began to rise.

  Huehueteotl was mildly irritated at receiving no warning of the incoming attack—especially one so devastating to a creature Sol had struggled against for so long. Had they not moved in time, they would have suffered the same agonizing fate now being inflicted upon the grotesque monster writhing in the pool of nightmarish blackness.

  The skeletal figures clawing their way out looked as though they had risen from the foulest abyss. A stench wafted outward—whether from the creature’s torn innards or the horrid, oil-like substance dissolving its organs, Sol could not tell.

  He gagged repeatedly, even within the yawning jaguar helmet. The divine malodor seeped through regardless, invading his senses as though the armor offered no barrier at all.

  He retreated farther but remained within striking distance. One divine dash would bring him back into range—if he could rest for even a moment.

  Unfortunately, the low creeping mist spreading through the forest denied him that chance.

  It shimmered in multicolored hues as it drifted between the trees, exuding a sweet, intoxicating fragrance. Slowly, almost curiously, it encircled Sol.

  That was when Tezcalotl warned him.

  The spirit's meow was closer to a roar as fetid vapor surged upward and enveloped Sol completely. The miasma swirled tightly, keeping him trapped at its center no matter how he tried to break free from its noxious nexus.

  Suddenly, Sol felt as though he wore nothing at all.

  The poisonous haze seeped through the seams of his turquoise armor, dulling its protective presence. Every sensation—heat, cold, moisture, movement—pressed directly against his skin. Huehueteotl had no immediate answer for such an unnatural intrusion.

  Sol burst forward at full speed, attempting to outrun the cloud.

  He remained at its center.

  The nauseating gas followed him perfectly, as though tethered to his existence. His vision blurred. Hallucinations crept in—bipedal insects emerging from the fog, their chitin glistening. Their clicking mandibles echoed in his ears, sharp and grating, sending a painful twinge through his right ear.

  Then everything froze.

  For a split second, Sol thought it was another trick of the poison.

  It was not.

  A sickle-like limb thrust toward his face, aiming to pierce his right eye. At the same time, he felt divinity draining from his body at an alarming rate.

  Tezcalotl intervened immediately.

  The adolescent jaguar spirit grounded Sol’s mind, guiding blue flame through every corner of his body. The divine fire purged the invasive, psychedelic toxin coursing through his veins.

  The sickle scraped past his eye, colliding with the jaguar helmet in a shower of sparks. A shallow scratch marred the turquoise surface—only to fade moments later as the armor repaired itself.

  The impact snapped Sol further from his stupor.

  Yet the haze lingered so long as he remained within the eye of the toxic fog.

  The miasma refused to grant him space. It thickened steadily, gathering into a denser mass. The swirling corruption compressed, preparing to suffocate him within its tenebrous embrace if he did nothing.

  But inside the oily vortex, Sol felt powerless.

  The gas had already filled his lungs.

  He choked within the very armor he had believed would protect him.