The gods are not how we understand them to be. In the Fathoms, the gods are more like administrators for specific concepts, or perhaps even more like anchor points from where these Concepts flow. Every time someone dies, they go to the hound here. Of course, if they’re a Trespasser, the rules are different. But then again, that applies to everything. The other gods, such as Ignium, have domains over fire and creation, and the performance of such acts relating to these concepts allows you to further empower them, or their Scions.

Why the Antediluvians created such avatars to serve their whims, we can’t say for certain. But there is a theory. A theory that they are trying to create constructs, intelligible constructs, that can be further developed and warp the concepts they are meant to embody. So that someday, a flame might not just be a flame, might be an actively developing story that transforms. And in this, a god then becomes a narrator to an experiment. One to the question, what does an idea become eons later?

-Gods of the Fathoms

II-54

Death-Touched

“What?” Wei asked, his mind reeling from the Hound’s request.

“I wish for you to use your System on me. There is something I wish to see shattered. A limitation I have been contemplating the removal of for some time.” The God of Death circled the young master, and a building tension swelled within Wei. With each step the Hound of the Withered Moon took, Wei felt a chilling grief sink deeper into his bones, chilling his very marrow.

“Your system,” the Hound said, “is valuable beyond your understanding. You use it like a child would, a blunt hammer meant to break things.” The Hound let out a slight chuckle. “I suppose I cannot fault you. When you exist as you are, a material entity first and foremost, breaking everything is the easiest means of achieving desired ends. What you have is a means of absolute annihilation, oblivion—something a step beyond even my final end. And because it represents absolute annihilation, it is also a means of modification and a key, something that can reshape all spiritual entities and constructs. Which is why my system is required to open the vault.”

“The vault on Earth,” Wei asked, trying to pull more information from the Hound. If the God of Death knew anything, they did not betray their knowledge.

“There are many things the Harbinger will ask you to do. Many things the other powers here will want from you, will try to take your system for. I simply want you to do one thing for me right now.”

The Hound of the Withered Moon reached into the darkness covering their body, and as they did, Wei’s God’s presence magnified. The pain became overwhelming. Wei thought he was going to come apart immediately, just from standing before the Hound. Gusts of lashing cold burrowed through him, and he let out an anguished scream. Yet he did not die. Rather, he felt honed and empowered through the pain.

Imbue.

The word flashed into Wei’s mind and dissolved like dust.

Fortification > 71

[121/100] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

As his Fortification climbed, the Hound simply watched him, studied him, and began pouring influence into him—not influence, but a kind of Essence, an infusion. And from the Hound emerged a shard—a shard of pitch black, absolute darkness. It was like a seed encased in a block of ice, and Wei felt it for what it was: a Skill Shard potent unlike anything else.

“The seed of death,” the Hound said, “My tithe to you. And your tie to me.”

Skill Evolution

Seed of Darkness: Apply this Seed of Darkness to one of your Skills. It will grant the Essence of [Withering] to your attacks.

“What is this?” Wei said, barely able to stand, his legs shaking, his very muscles felt fused to his bones.

“This is what I want you to break off from me. This seed will tie you to this externalized Concept Core of mine—this realm of the Final End. Through it, I will speak to you, will offer you the guidance you need. And you might cut deeper still with your scythe. To reap what you could not for my Final End.”

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” Wei demanded.

“The same thing everyone wants,” the Hound replied. “To reshape the fathoms and all existence in my ideal, in my image, with my concepts. Mepheleon dreams of becoming the final victor, of expanding his Claimed Hells everywhere, to create his idealized dystopia. Forever, a disharmony that will allow him to reign for true immortality.”

“True immortality?” Wei asked.

“Yes,” the Hound confirmed. “He is ageless now, but he’s nowhere near as powerful as you think. He is quite vulnerable, especially when faced against rival System-hosts that are capable of direct violence.”

“Direct violence?” Wei asked. “What do you mean?”

The Hound went silent. “So you know less about the Harbinger than I expected. A pity. You need to use that mind of yours more, boy. It will aid you in the future more than your martial might will. Of course, he is not the only one in this great competition. The Dying Queen, my supposed favored Unfallen legions, the Inheritors—all are factions seeking the domination of your father’s homeworld. And all will do anything they can to capture the source of the trespassers and to enter the highest, the greatest Antediluvian vault. The only intact Antediluvian vault left in existence is the Administry, where the rules of existence can be redefined. Or so it is thought.

“All of them seek to strike pacts with me, to have me debase myself, offering them insight, spying information through every death, through every life I have taken, trying to get me to stand next to them as one of the few remaining gods left in this nightmare of an existence. But I will make only one deal. I will only strike one pact with one host, and that is you, Wei An Wei. You. Because unlike all the others, I can still collect on your soul, and unlike all the others, I have something that you want.”

And Wei was gut-twisted evermore. “You. You will let me visit my mother again. You will let Ellena go.”

“No,” the Hound said. “She belongs to me, as you do, as does everyone else. The Final End awaits. But until that point, and in the darkness forever, I will see you rejoined, and in the interim—”

“Be wary,” the Shell said. “The Hound speaks truth, I do think, but there is much they have not revealed, and it is a far greater entity than we. We have no ability to compel it, no capability of facing it in battle. If we choose to accept its offering, we leave ourselves at its mercy.”

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“Not mercy,” the Hound said, greeting the Shell with a nod. Wei’s stomach dropped.

“You can see my Skill?”

“Yes. What an exquisite mutilation you have inflicted upon your own spirit, child.”

Wei was speechless. Not even Mepheleon detected the Shell. Or at least the Harbinger never commented. Was there nothing unknown to Death themselves.

“Do not worry. I am not a cruel creature. I am not a creature at all. I am just the inevitable, the true-neutral, the empty and nothing and peace above peace. I am not inflicting these choices on you. The ones who died were not stolen from your life. They were simply bound to me. Bound for me. I cannot return the Queen of Dawnrest in perpetuity even if it was compelled of me. She has been touched by the end now. The Withering has filled her. She will not be able to last in the waking world.”

“But… then what was the Harbinger–”

“Tell the Harbinger their arrangements have been accepted,” the Hound said, cutting through Wei’s question. “She will be restored. For a time. But the length of her stay cannot be guaranteed. My Concepts cannot exist in a place of life, and so, I can only let her linger for so long.”

Wei swallowed. His chest was coming asunder with pain. He did fail her. He did let her die. “Can… Can Agnesia visit her in the Final End? Can I?”

“An more possible request. But it will take a considerable devotion of my power as well. You? Definitely. The girl? No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are a Twisted One. The child of a Fictional and a Trespasser. The Withering still pains you, but it cannot claim you entirely. But the girl is Ignium’s vessel, and so she shall go to him when she is taken from the waking world as well.”

“There has to be something I can give you. Something I can do to have you grant clemency. Allowance!”

The Hound angled their armored skull down at the Skill Shard. The ashen slab of frost shone as if a spot of purest white upon the swirling miasma of darkness. “Accept the Skill Shard. Take my power. Nothing else need be said until you receive my aid—or reject it.”

Despite everything, despite every misgiving and every worry, Wei materialized his scythe and grimaced. Shell… What am I to do?

For nearly a minute, the Shell remained silent. But even its inner strength wasn’t without end. “Take it. It is the only way we will see our mother again.”

Wei clenched his jaw. “Suppose I agree, suppose I do this. Will you promise to me that no harm will come, that you will not betray this trust of mine?”

The Hound studied him curiously. At his chest, the scion, Death’s bastard, twisted and writhed, his eyes wide with horror. “I will promise that your trust will be upheld. As for harm,” the Hound of the Withered Moon let out a cold, winnowing breath through the gaps in its frost-alloyed chassis, “we are all harmed in the end. Now. Hear the seed. It calls to your scythe.”

And the Hound was right. Wei felt his Form of the Martial Harvester resonate in his hands. As he lowered it closer to the shard, the trembling grew stronger, and coldness licked at his very spirit. Wei shivered but held the course. He didn’t know if this was wise. The full picture of this absurd war was lost on him. But this way, if the Hound spoke true, he could still see his mother… his family…

The young master touched the Skill Shard with his tip, and a crack spread across its surface. Vapors of darkness hissed out and swirled around his scythe. The coldness intensified, but Wei felt something else—decay. Rot. Withering. The inevitable power of death’s corrosion seeped into his Skill.

The Form of the Martial Harvester was evolving. Its edge went from a metallic gleam to a fluid, frozen darkness. But within that quivering ebony, he felt the presence of the Final End, of the Hound itself. The presence of death lined his scythe now in the truest sense, in the deepest sense. Yet, Wei himself remained unaffected beyond his discomfort. A notification loaded as the seed was fully absorbed.

Form of the Withering Harvester: Allows the user to reap Source Essence or Aspect Charges on enemies. Deals extra damage to Constitution. Applies [Source Withering] effect. Source Withering causes damaged Aspects to continuously decay for a set period of time contested by the target’s Constitution.

“Source Withering,” Wei muttered. He wasn’t sure how potent this effect might be, but if it helped him passively reduce the Aspects of his adversaries, this could turn the tide of some fights entirely.

“Now. Break this.” The Hound drew another shape out from inside itself. This one looked to be a knot made from wood. Green leaves and flowers sprouted upon its surface, and the Hound held it up to Wei.

“What is this?” Wei asked.

“A thing of life. Something that should not be within me. My Scion had a twin sister born to the God of Life. This should not have been. This was engineered to shackle us to one another. Through you, both shall be untethered and the Scion of Life’s torment will be lessened.”

Wei swallowed. Again, he wasn’t sure how to proceed, but thus far, the Hound of the Withered Moon had proven most honorable. More honorable than an avatar of death should ever be. Paired with the fact that he really wanted to see what his new scythe could do, Wei lifted his Form of the Withered Harvester and slashed.

His blow landed—but his spirit rattled with recoil. It was like trying to chip through a mountain of iron with a toothpick. His arms rattled, his very spirit recoiled. But Wei gritted his teeth and swung again, again, again, again, with every blow. He felt his Authority growing stronger. He felt more and more Source fissures spread across the knot of wood and life.

Finally, with a loud cry and a savage splash, something gave. A blast of green faded into a reverberation of light and darkness. Wei felt something loosen in the surrounding atmosphere, and the air grew colder as well.

A Concept-Anchor has been broken

Achievement: [Bond-Breaker]

Bond-Breaker: You have shattered a paradoxical construct poisoning life with death and death with life. Allows you to deal a minor amount more harm to entities born from the Concepts of Life, Nature, and Water.

The notification took Wei by surprise, but not as much as his Aspect Advancements.

Authority > 85

[132/100] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

The Hound let out a slight gasp, “Wondrous, to still feel something, to be reminded of my own mortality.” The Hound leaned in, drawing close to Wei, and it took every last bit of the young master’s Ambition for him to stand still and remain unshaken.

“You seek to define the heavens, to seek every mystery, to achieve ascension. Well then, here is a threshold. Here is my face. I am Death. I am an absolute. I am a harbinger of myself, of the end, of everyone’s final end. For even if you have eternity, in that infinite possibility, across an infinite time, you will be struck down, if not by the hand of the other, then by yourself. Know me, and know that I am beyond heaven, Wei An Wei. I am truth. I am fact. I am the end.”

The young master heeded the coldness of the god’s words and received them without flinching. Even the cold ceased to burden him. “And know this, Hound, I am the Patriarch of the Drowned Sky Sect. I agree to your pact right now, because of what you offer, because of what you have, but I am no one’s pawn, and I will bend to no rules—heaven or not, greater than heaven or not, god or not. Cross me and I will come for you. You tell me you are absolute… you have only made yourself a target… a challenge to face.”

The Hound studied him for a moment longer and let out a quiet breath. “Ambitious, foolish, but ultimately, not incorrect, Concept Breaker. You should leave now. My time grows short. I cannot hold you here, for you know you are no longer close to death. You can tell the Harbinger that his offerings are accepted. The girl’s mother, Ellena of Dawnrest, will be granted to you, restored partially. But my taint will rest within her, and with each passing day she exists, life will quell the Withering within her. And eventually, she will recede. Back to where she is bound. Back to me.”

“And when might that be?” Wei asked.

The Hound didn’t reply. They simply stepped back.

“Wait—”

But the God of Death was no more. With a single movement, they melted into the black and ceased to be.

Suddenly, the darkness began to part around them, and as they turned to behold the lifting of the veil, the Hound backed away, sinking into the blackness that surrounded them. A piercing vertical slice of life and light expanded, and before he knew it, Wei found himself standing on a shore—the ashen shore where he had been moments earlier. He looked over the chasm that led down into the Final End, with hundreds of waterfalls splashing into that endless abyss. Behind him, Ellena holding on to her daughter, gasping for breath. Alive. Alive. Only for now. But still alive.