As he did so however, the room started to shake, and one of the piles of coins on the far side of the treasury erupted, spilling coins everywhere. A twenty foot tall humanoid torso emerged, with skin the color of milk. Glowing blue lines covered its form, and soon the rest of its body emerged, a titanic worm, with ridged skin and thousands of scars.

“Jonathan Harlowe. We finally meet,” the creature said, a twisted grin stealing across the face of its humanoid part. “I would introduce myself, but I am sure that you already know who I am.”

“Granath!” Jonathan exclaimed, shocked. This entire thing had been a trap.

The worm snapped its tail, somewhere below the piles of coins, and the air shattered, propelling the circle lord forwards faster than Jonathan could see. The worm landed in front of the two men, and stared down at them. The air shifted as evidence of his passing, and Jonathan was almost torn off his feet by the wind caused by the skill that Granath had used. Or perhaps it had simply been pure brute force, which was even more frightening. So far, Granath was not exuding any of his aura, but Jonathan could still feel a naked threat heavy in the air, ready to come crashing down at any moment.

“Did you plan all this?” Jonathan asked, fighting to keep the tremor out of his voice. “Did you know that we would come here?”

“Did you really think that you could fool a being as old and experienced as me? I wanted to meet you in the flesh, and after learning that you somehow managed to escape from your confinement, that desire was inflamed even more. Before I devour your soul, I wanted to get a long look at the latest would be challenger to my rule.”

As this was happening, Edgar, who was being ignored by Granth, was starting to edge back towards the door. Jonathan stepped forwards, trying to distract Granath for long enough for Edgar to get out. Perhaps one of them could escape. However, as he approached Granath, the worm-like monstrosity extended one of its hands, and lifted Edgar up into the air with a powerful display of telekinesis, and unceremoniously dumped the man onto a pile of coins nearby.

“Anyone who consorts with people like Jonathan Harlowe will not escape my judgment. I don’t even know who you are, but your soul will still taste just as good.”

As the worm spoke, his mouth opened, and blue tentacles of mana started to drop out, writhing in the air. They moved towards Edgar at a sedate place, and as they approached the man, something started to rise out of his body. It looked like a silvery shadow of his normal self, and it contained an amount of power that was far more than what was in Edgar’s actual body. The shade fought to remain in its body, but it was nothing before the encroaching power of the lord of the Ash Heaps, and the soul gradually was coaxed free of its constraints.

Jonathan screamed in rage, and sent his mana rocketing towards the blue tentacles, trying to unbind them with his copious mana pool. A stream of purple mana raced out of his hand towards the writhing form of Granath, and it impacted the tentacles, slowly starting to taint them with its purple darkness. However, Granath simply raised one eyebrow, and Jonathan was lifted off his feet by a titanic backlash as his mana was forcibly ripped apart midair, exploding in his face. He impacted the wall, and lay there, groaning.

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Edgar was struggling, but it was of no use, and his soul was growing closer and closer to being devoured by the hungry abyss of Granath’s maw. Now was the time for desperate measures, and although what he was planning might very well kill him, Jonathan got to his feet, and began to cycle his Divinity through his body. As he did so, he drew upon his new skill editing ability, and forced his consciousness into the runes that made up his Smite skill, searching for any that matched the Rune of Beckoning, or the Rune of Hatred. Upon finding both of them in the supremely complicated rune array, he poured his remaining Divinity into them, causing his body to almost explode with power. His limbs glowed with the light of a small sun, and he felt as if he could destroy a building with a single punch. However, his body was burning away, and he only had a few minutes before he died.

Jonathan raced forwards, his feet spreading flame across the ground, and reached his armor and weapons. He donned them in the blink of an eye, his hands moving like lightning, and he ran towards Granath, who seemed slightly surprised at Jonathan’s turn of speed. The worm raised one hand and then brought it crashing down, sending a wave of telekinetic force towards Jonathan. However, he powered through the weak assault, relying on the fact that Granath had underestimated his new strength. Before the worm could attack again, slowed down as he was by his soul consumption, Jonathan leaped up and grabbed the blue tentacles of mana with his hand, pumping the raw power of the Void into them. It was nowhere near enough to destroy the immensely powerful spell, but he managed to weaken them enough to grasp Edgar and tug him free of their embrace.

The silvery soul slid back into its resting place, and Jonathan dropped to the ground, running towards the exit as if it was the last thing he would ever see. As he did so, he did something that he had been avoiding for a long time. He allocated all of his remaining stat points. Half of them went into Strength, and half into Dexterity, leaving one left over, causing his footsteps to suddenly increase in power, propelling him away from his enemy. He had possessed no time to split up the points, so it was just a raw 1.5 times boost. It was time to bring out all the stops.

Granath roared in rage and slithered at high speed towards Jonathan, moving faster than he could run. Jonathan dodged to the side as he sensed the worm behind him, and the circle ruler almost crashed into the wall. However, his Dexterity was on par with his level, and he swerved mid rush to face Jonathan, opening his mouth wide. A spear of concentrated mana shot out of Granath’s mouth, and impacted Jonathan, moving so quickly that he could not avoid it, even with his current level of power. A circular hole was blasted straight through his armor and chest, almost hitting his heart. The pain was blinding, but he barely felt it in comparison to the pain engulfing the rest of his body.

Jonathan kept running, ignoring the blood leaking out of his body, and missing the fact that it was golden in color instead of its normal reddish hue. However, Granath did not miss that little detail. As Jonathan exited the treasury room less than a second later, the worm bellowed in rage.

“You will not escape me, godling! That Divinity is mine!”