Aurelian frowned at Tarixi while they continued their descent, and the name of the God of Light continued to bother him. Something about the grandiosity of it rubbed him the wrong way. It sounded megalomaniacal, almost.

“I thought you said there aren’t any—?”

“I use god in a loose definition. Consider, if you will, an ant. If you have the power to crush that ant under your heel, are you not akin to a god from its perspective?”

“Cool that you have ants here,” he said first, “but yeah, I understand. It’s the whole magic is just science we—actually never mind, that doesn’t really apply here,” he waved a hand. “I get it is what I mean. They’re… super high levelled arseholes?”

She laughed. “In a manner of speaking, certainly. That is likely why you were called.”

“What do you mean?” he asked with a sudden twist of anxiety. “I’m not going to be expected to fight a god, right?”

Iron Will is now Level 18!

“No, but the purpose of your Core should elucidate your nature.”

“You’re being too vague, Tarixi. Spit it out please. I hate vagaries.”

She laughed again, as if she were enjoying teasing him. “Very well. My apologies,” she turned around while she drifted and faced him, a sly smile on her features. “Your Calamity Core. Have you ever considered why it is named such?”

“I dunno, isekai melodrama?” he commented with nerves-induced sarcasm.

“Is that the name of a deity?” she enquired.

Aurelian snorted. “It—No. Continue. Sorry. Just… context. Nevermind. Go ahead.”

She regarded him levelly for a moment and then, blessedly, decided to accept his explanation. “There were once many gods, Aurelian. Probably over a hundred in truth. Nobody who lived in my time knew what triggered the Godswar that ended them, but all we know is that the Realm was engulfed in it.”

Her tone became sombre while she spoke, and Aurelian felt the weight of her memory littering her inflection. She may not have lived the Godswar, but based on all evidence; she had lived during a time when Godsworn imitated it well enough.

“Cities burned,” she continued amidst his thoughts, “mountains rose and fell, seas were formed where land had prevailed… deities waged war on one another directly and through their mortal supplicants, and by the end of it all only one faction remained: Solarius and the Nine,” her voice turned notably spiteful when she uttered the final part, and then she sighed as if to rid herself of the ire before continuing.

“What you must understand is that the System has rules. Not the way that you or I might see the concept, but the System is not a thing of dictation. It is a thing of choice and consequence,” she peered at him while they descended, expression rueful.

“There is a point, I promise.” she said as if to placate suspected boredom.

“I’m actually really interested to hear this,” he said with a smile. “Continue, please.”

Tarixi nodded with a look of pleasant surprise and did as he requested.

“There were many scholarly works relating to how it functioned, but the most agreed upon theory is that the System runs on mana. Or perhaps it is mana. That truth is one that has escaped us, but we do know that the most potent form of magical energy is, in fact, Soulforce.”

“Oh. Oooh,” Aurelian said as pieces started to click. “And we cultivate it, and mana.”

“That’s right,” Tarixi said approvingly. “All creatures bound to the System intake mana, but so too do we create it in our bodies, and with our Soulforce. Thus, it is in the System’s interest and is its most logical prerogative to ensure the Realms’ continued existence.”

“I’m guessing this is why the gods aren’t roaming around punting mortals anymore.”

“Right again,” she said with a ghostly grin. “When the Godswar ended, the System placed limitations on the divine as a result of their reckless, and wanton obliteration of massive swathes of both the Realms, and their myriad denizens. They were restricted to the ‘Highest’, and there they were forced to remain. They could, however, create symbiotic connections of a kind between denizens of other Realms and themselves. A watered-down imitation of the connection between the System and living creatures—within which definition they are still included—in fact.”

“They give power, and gain worship in return. I’m guessing that Faith is some sort of energy for them?”

“Yes,” Tarixi said with another nod. “The gods rely on Faith for strength. It’s cultivated into Influence, which is what they expend to affect or change things in whatever capacity they can. It also directly affects how powerful they are individually.”

“Megalomaniacal immortals,” he muttered. “That sounds like a horror story.”

“Indeed,” Tarixi agreed firmly, “and despite the Godswar there were many people that still maintained Faith in the Ten. For a time, they held quite a bit of power over the Prime Material, right up until the first Calamity.”

When she looked back to check if he was listening, he simply gestured for her to continue.

“Mmm. History tells us it was a woman of preternatural power, force, and the ability to surpass all limits. She was not born here, though. She was Called.”

Aurelian blinked, and then let out a slow sigh. “She was Nephilim?”

“That is the understood lore, yes.” Tarixi confirmed.

“Who called her?”

“That is where it becomes interesting. You remember I said that Shadow is reviled by the Godsworn?”

“Yes…?”

“Shadow was the Dominion of Selenia, Solarius’ twin sister.”

“So why is it—?”

“You asked who called the Calamity.”

“Wait, a goddess did?!” Aurelian exclaimed.

“Yes. Purportedly Selenia grew weary of her brother and their kin, and regretted the damage they had done to the Realms. She passed on the ritual of the Calling to her followers, and bade them to act in her stead. They very evidently complied.”

“So Solarius, what… killed her?”

“Worse.” Tarixi responded grimly. “He drained her of power and used the Influence of the other Eight to imprison her in the Prime Material where she could languish, watching over those she betrayed her own kind to protect.”

“Where is—?”

“She is the Moon,” Tarixi said gravely.

“Holy shit,” Aurelian said with a low whistle. “And the Calamity?”

“Exposed the gods for the selfish, conceited, self-aggrandising parasites they were.”

“And they just let her?” he asked suspiciously.

“Not at all. Her Calamity Core allowed her to not only free worshippers from their thrall, but remove divine influence from a Soulforce. She could sunder their connection to even their most powerful servants, after she defeated them and weakened them enough.”

Tarixi’s smirk was in her tone as she spoke. “Deities cannot intervene in the Prime Material directly, as I said. They can only direct their servants or, in very rare cases, Avatars empowered with a shard of their essence through momentous expenditures of Influence. It was not so much that they allowed her to do it, as much as they simply had no means of halting her directly.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“So, I could—?”

“Quite so.”

“And I was summoned because you needed that?”

Tarixi nodded again. “A Calamity Core is the only way we can stop the madness the Godsworn unleashed in their destruction of the Empire, and its teachings of the true histories. Once Justinian joined the Solari and their forces…” she sighed quietly. “Well, that marked the beginning of the end for our struggle.”

“Justinian?” Aurelian queried.

“Justinian of House Tollarius,” she clarified sadly. “Our last Imperator’s brother.”

“That’s downright Shakespearian…” he murmured.

“Pardon?” Tarixi asked curiously.

“Never mind, it’s a cultural reference from my home. So, Justinian joined the Godsworn, screwed over the Elysean Empire, and brought back religion to the apostate masses?”

“Through force where necessary, but yes. The divine had been reviled and rightfully shunned for thousands of years thanks to the efforts of the Elysean Empire, and the teachings passed down by the Calamity. By converting Justinian, the Solari turned all of his considerable influence to their purpose, and gained an incredibly powerful commander—and those that did not buy into the dogma…” she shook her head. “Well, there were easy solutions for naysayers.”

“That is seriously fucked up,” Aurelian said quietly.

“Indeed.” Tarixi replied. “Though initially Faith starved, the gods only gained more power and more momentum as they gained followers. Once their tide of so-called ‘Revelation’ reached critical mass, there was little we could do.” she explained sadly.

“And so, that brings us to the current state of the Realms: Elysea fallen, the gods in ascendancy once more—led by Solarius, most likely, and his grand cult—and no voice of reason nor power left in the Prime Material to oppose them.”

“Except me,” he said while his Iron Will fought valiantly to repel his anxiety.

“That’s right,” Tarixi agreed cheerfully. “And I’m going to make sure you’re ready to kick their cult’s thrice-accursed godsloving teeth in.”

“Well,” he said with genuine amusement at her words, “that’s reassuring.”

“I’m glad,” she said heartily. “After all, it is only appropriate that we come full circle.”

“Because of the Calamity?”

“Of course,” Tarixi said with a glance back at him. “She wasn’t just the liberator, Aurelian, she was the founder of the Empire. That’s why Elyseans are—were—such a powerful race. Every single one of us had Nephilim blood.”

“All from one woman?” he asked incredulously. “Am I going to have to—?”

“No, of course not.” Tarixi laughed.

“Oh. Good. Yeah. Um. Good.” he said while trying to hide the slight disappointment.

Tarixi didn’t seem to notice, or at least, chose not to comment.

“Over the centuries,” she continued as if he hadn’t said anything, “her bloodline mingled throughout all of the Empire, and other Nephilim were also Called to address times of crisis or lesser re-emergences of the god cults. Each one took a different guise on arrival; everything from Elves to Humans to Orcs to Dwarves to Gnomes… it goes on,” she waved a hand airily. “Elyseans, as a result, would appear as almost any of the races really. They were usually more inclined towards appearing of Elven and Human descent, based on the popularity of those races among the Nephilim… but that is—was, rather—the most common affectation.”

“Which one am I? The System didn’t really give me a choice. It was just ‘Elysean’.”

“Truly? That is… strange. I suppose it makes sense, given what the Calling supposedly had been altered to do, but… Mmm. Yes. Strange,” she hummed thoughtfully for a moment, before abruptly shrugging. “It hardly matters. You are the Reclaimer, Aurelian. Elysean is what you decide it is, now,” she turned back to grin at him conspiratorially.

“But if you must know, you look not unlike a more powerfully built half-elf.”

“Half-Elf? Half Elf and half what, exactly?”

“Impossible to place, truthfully. Your skin tone is fair like high or storm elves, and you have their ears, but with muscles like a half-orc, the strong jaw and proportional features of a human, and the symmetrical perfection of a System-forged Nephilim body. It was never too talented with asymmetry as a concept, though. I couldn’t place you if I tried, without knowing what I know.”

Aurelian fell silent as he mulled over that, and the deluge of history and insight he’d received. The way she spoke of the System, the gods, the correlation between the Realms… It was almost enough to make his head spin.

He certainly felt overwhelmed.

Inundated with information, too.

He was thankful in that moment for his Codex, which he noted with a quick check had been faithfully recording everything. Tarixi’s insights had given him a sense of relief in that he knew, at least, that Elyseans weren’t evil. It would have been a bit disappointing to be summoned by the ‘baddies’, as it were.

But that also didn’t implicitly make the Godsworn evil.

They might have had varied beliefs and incredibly horrible ways of accomplishing their goals, but until he saw what sort of world they’d ended up building with it, it was difficult for him to lay the crimes of thousands of years prior at the feet of the current generation. There was enough of that on Earth, he didn’t need to bring it to the Realms.

If they were tyrannical megalomaniacs, though… he glanced down at his hands.

Would he have the resolve to fight? To kill? It was a question he couldn’t answer.

“Ah,” Tarixi said abruptly, cutting off his reverie and snapping him back to the present as the end of the stairwell finally arrived and they emerged onto a relatively uniformly flat plane of granite. “We are here.”

Exploration is now Level 5!

Exploration is now Level 6!

“Where is ‘here’?” Aurelian asked warily.

“The greatest secret of the Elysean Empire’s final days, Reclaimer. Your charge.”

As if on cue—though more likely from his forward movement—the entire cavern abruptly surged with light; illuminated in every corner of a vast, dwarfing expanse that could have indeed fit a small Earth-sized city well within its limits.

As light was shed, his eyes travelled over the vast and open area.

It had to have been almost a kilometre high or more, and wide enough to fit a dozen American football fields comfortably in a square grid, and that was with immense amounts of room to spare. The sheer scale of it defied reason, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen a greater demonstration of the wonders of magic.

“This is unreal,” he said in an awed voice. “But why is it so empty?”

“Ah, the final security layer must still be in place. Please reach out with your will and try to interact with the system.”

“Uh, alright,” Aurelian said with a glance at Tarixi before doing as she bid, and extending his awareness.

Alpha-One User identified in Facility 01-DSU-Alpha.

Local Security Measures designation [Leviathan Mirage] in effect.

Would you like to disable [Leviathan Mirage], Reclaimer?

Y / N

“Uh it’s asking me if I want to disable the le—?”

“Leviathan Mirage?” Tarixi interrupted impatiently. “Yes, do so.”

Aurelian blinked. “That doesn’t really sound safe…”

“Aurelian,” she said in exasperation as she turned, “I have waited thousands of years for you to arrive. I am not going to encourage you to do anything that harms you needlessly.”

“I…” He hesitated still, but a voice in his mind played to his reason: Trust had to be extended before it could be earned.

Though the ‘needlessly’ clarification seemed a little ominous.

“Well, alright,” he said with a deep breath, and prayer he was doing the right thing.

A flick of a thought later and he pressed the ‘Y’ option with his mind.

Input accepted.

Alpha-One User override registered.

[Leviathan Mirage] shutting down.

Welcome to the Dragon’s Den, Reclaimer.

“The Dragon’s D—?” Aurelian’s mouth snapped shut mid-speech.

His entire body froze and refused to move.

Even Iron Will seemed to have momentarily shut down.

Where before there had been nothing but empty space, now there was a mountainous mass of onyx and platinum scales, with a head the size of a school and eyes the size of a cars.

Two forward-swept and angled horns large enough to impale buses on comfortably jutted out from atop its head, and a pair of immense leathery wings were folded over a body with four limbs, each of which ended in five claws large enough to crush ten people in a single blow.

It had a serrated tail coiled around its body, its thickest portion as wide as a 747 airliner, and likely heavier too. The entire mass of the creature seemed large enough to have made Godzilla look like an angry adolescent by comparison, and that was going off of the newer movies. The thing could have given Godzilla Earth a run for its money.

He could scarcely believe his eyes.

He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t speak.

A creature of myth out of his wildest dreams had appeared before him.

A gigantic fucking Dragon.

And one blazing golden eye was staring directly at him.