As soon as Nic’s hand closed around the butterfly, the swirling mists of miasma seemed to recede. Nic sighed in relief and looked around him, searching for the ‘path’ that was meant to carry him deeper into these cursed woods.

It appeared as beams of gentle light shining through the trees, illuminating a moonlight road.

“Huh.” As Nic stepped onto the path, he discovered that the miasma shrank back, its petrifying effect slowing substantially. Having tried to break through by sheer speed and force, there were aspects to this trial he had clearly missed. Subtle shifts in the degree of miasma forming ‘safe’ paths…

In fact, he thought back to the medicines growing under the acacia tree. There had been aloe grasses that granted spiritual sight…

Maybe it had been as simple as preparing that into medicine to uncover this road.

He shook his head.

It really seemed he was bound to always pick the hardest path to his goal.

Slithering along the moonlight road in his warform, he found his way through the thinnest areas of fog, slipping deeper into the woods. Stone gathered on his body, but it was slower now, and he made good progress through the hollow forest…

He passed many statues made of humans. They struggled towards the center, but all of them had failed. Their bodies were entombed in stone now, some still walking forwards, others fallen to their knees. One girl in a priest’s clothes stood out, crawling away from the fog…

He continued in deathly silence.

Until he finally came to the center.

Twin acacia trees filled a grove with their fragrant balm, the stone shedding from his skin. On all sides, the fog rose up into nearly solid walls of miasma, with only the one entrance where the mist was thin enough to penetrate. Between the two trees was a small mausoleum of square stone, ringed by pillars holding up a pyramid roof capped in gold. Its door was a solid piece of white marble, emblazoned with mosaics of snake depicted in jade.

Nic had arrived.

He let the moth flutter free from his hands, up into the air.

All of Nic’s instincts spoke as he looked at the tomb. This was going to be a fight, from the moment those doors opened until only he or the dead goddess remained. The System liked its clever games…

But it always ended with bloodshed.

With the six arms of his warform, he grasped the double doors and pulled.

Stone dust rained down as they creaked apart.

A voice echoed into the air, the clear, cold command of the System speaking as the tomb was torn open.

Unable to steal the prize, the priest fled.. With every step, his body crumbled and was replaced by swirling sand. He tore his way through the walls and vanished into the deep desert.

But that was not the end. He did not die. Instead, he became a thing of the wastes, king of the spirits who lurk there. He gave them bodies of sand and sent them into our land as soldiers, relentless and undying. To seal him, the sphinx was created, and her gaze forever points towards his kingdom-in-exile, suppressing his power.

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Discover four Lore Fragments to bind and weaken the Guardian ‘High Priest of the Red Land’

The moonlight of the glade fell inwards, illuminating the dusty tomb. Surrounded by canopic jars and golden statuettes, perched on a shrine, the mummified body of the goddess lay. She was perfect. Even in death she was a stunning beauty.

She had the curling, sapphire tail of a naga, but the upper body of a four-armed human. Her skin was the green of a deep river, with blood red nails. Her head was neither snake nor human, but both, with a cobra’s hood enshrining a woman’s face in all its subtle, elegant beauty.

Her eyes snapped open.

Nic braced for impact.

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Before the doors had even fully opened, she flung herself forward with a wild scream, her nails biting into the stone and pushing the gates apart. She spilled forward, falling onto her hands.

As she exited the tomb, her lovely beauty fell away.

The Fallen Goddess, Fefernette. D-Class // Divine. A lingering husk containing divine power, corrupted by miasmic influences.

Her skin turned drab and discolored, withered down to the bone like dry leather. Her face became a deathmask, eyeless, wrinkled, the teeth yellow in her mouth. Even the scales of her snakelike lower form lost their luster and became paper thin.

“Yyyyoooouuu…” She hissed out. “Where is the thiiieeeef…”

“Don’t know. Wouldn’t tell you. If you mean that priest, I’m going to kill him too.” Nic answered calmly. “But first I have to deal with you…” He swung Peacemaker easily in one hand.

She lunged for him. He ripped through a hand with a single slice from Peacemaker, severing it at the wrist. The other three hammered down. Nic caught them, blow for blow, five arms to three-

And he was blown away. Her sheer strength felt like it pulverized bone with each impact, knocking him away. He went rolling and the goddess was on him again in a heartbeat, one hand lifting up and hammering down with the full strength of a divine body.

All of Nic’s hands joined together, layering the backs of his arms into a shield.

That shield broke.

Two of his arms were snapped like twigs.

The blow wasn’t the first or the last. Again she drove down, smashing against his broken limbs and making him scream out in agony. Her tail wrapped around him, oppressing him, their long serpentine bodies thrashing as they fought for dominance. She was winning. She was crushing him down, relentless and iron-bodied.

Nic fought to teleport away. He pushed aura through the Eight-Directions Ring, but with so much of her body grasping him, he was locked down, her aura weighed against his own. She reached down to grasp his throat and cut off his cultivation, his own hands throwing futile blows against her torso, each hand wrapped in ash.

Nothing worked.

With a final desperation, he spat Primordial Mist into her face. She screamed and reeled back, giving Nic the chance to abandon his Warform, shedding the naga’s skin like a veil. In that moment he was able to slip free of her clutches, rolling away with Peacemaker in hand.

She shot across the ground, her hands reaching out to seize him again. Nic knew he wouldn’t survive a second grapple.

So he wove defensively, dodging aside, letting her lead the dance of combat. She pressed him relentlessly. Although he’d sliced away one of her hands in the first moments of battle, that had been a sacrifice she’d been willing to make. Three was more than enough.

Nic found himself caught in the momentum of her attacks, barely dodging each one, never given time to recover or prepare for the next; he was losing ground, losing energy, and each blow came within a hair’s breadth of annihilating him.

She struck out.

He stepped back.

And Nic was plunged into the mist. Instantly, stone began to cover his features, but for a moment…

Just a moment…

Nic found peace in the battlefield. The goddess-husk didn’t follow him into the mists, couldn’t or wouldn’t or both. He had a moment to drag air into his lungs and steady his feet, adjust his stance, ready his mind. A moment to focus.

He could only take advantage of the reprieve for a few breaths before the miasma threatened to petrify him there forever, but it was enough to realize what he had to do.

How he could win this fight.

Pulling out a leaf of Herongrass Aloe, he broke it in half and smeared the gel in a long streak under his eyes..

Nic plunged back into the sacred grove of the tomb, and immediately teleported. He flickered away as the goddess’ hand clawed through where he’d been in an instant before. He reappeared behind her, his bow Hollowsung clutched in hand. Without hesitation he unleashed its ability, the Poisonmist Snare. Illusionary chains shot forward to grasp her arms and bind her.

It wouldn’t hold even for a second, but it would slow her down. Nic ran forward, drawing three arrows and firing them in quick succession. Each one was printed with talismanic runes for detonation.

They didn’t have the strength to harm a goddess, but she wasn’t his target-

Each one sunk into the trunk of the acacia tree on the tomb’s left. With a single word, they exploded and tore the trees’ trunk to splinters. Instantly, the light filling the grove dimmed. The mist poured inwards by dozens of feet and the goddess shrieked as it touched her, turning already-dessicated flesh to stone.

She poured towards Nic, a torrent of scales and fury.

Nic teleported again, atop the mausoleum. As she wound up the pillars and dug her claws into the roof, he leapt down, swinging Peacemaker with all his fury. The blade ignited, redoubling its speed and strength for a blazing moment.

He split the second acacia in two with a single downwards swordstroke.

The mist rushed in as an all-powerful wall. It crashed over them, a tide of gray, rolling smoke, stealing the strength from Nic’s limbs. He heard the goddess scream once, and then fall silent…

She had become a strange and ugly statue, wound around the top of her own tomb, her clawed hand reaching out for Nic from above…

He darted inside, pulling the doors shut. The mist dried to a trickle between the gates as they slammed closed behind him. Frantically, knowing he only had a little time, Nic ransacked the room. Statuettes and canopic jars were pulled into his bag. Jewelry and riches likewise.

But the medicine- the deadly, god-killing medicine- wasn’t here.

The cursed priest from the story hadn’t taken it. So where was it?

Nic had no time. The mist was seeping in under the door. He sighed and gave up, turning. With a single forward blow he smashed the doors of their hinges and teleported, teleported, teleported, spending all his aura in a single blaze to flicker through the deep mist and out.

He only stopped when he caught the thread of the moonlight path again, and could safely walk the rest of the way. He had been right about the aloes; they allowed him to see without needing the moth.

But he paused for a moment, as he retreated through the land of statues. He traced his way backwards for a time, searching for something he’d seen in passing before, but ignored at the time.

All of the statues save one had been heading into the deep mist…

But one, a girl in priest’s clothing, had been trying to get out.