Holographic screens floated in the air, casting dancing lights across Marshmallow's face. The warrior stared wide-eyed as he absorbed the immensity of his new status. He had finally reached level 100, a milestone that who knows if anyone else in the Survivor game had ever reached.
Still, he could not feel a spark of excitement deep in his chest. He knew that there was one last glorious milestone to reach before he could finally declare himself the undisputed champion.
The death of BloodLust.
The two new skills stolen with his Jolly Rank - Spatiokinesis and Necrokinesis - pulsed subtly in his open palms, like tentacles of dark energy, eager to be tested to their full potential. An almost maddening grin spread across Marshmallow's face as he felt that irresistible call, the call of their newly enhanced power.
"This... is just the beginning," he murmured in a raspy voice, letting out an exhausted breath as a shiver of madness ran down his spine. He tilted his head back and exhaled slowly as if to savor the new essence of power coursing through his veins. Every fiber of his being yearned to experience the limits of this new absolute power.
With a deliberate gesture of his hand, he caused Spatiokinesis to take shape around him as a swirling aura of violet energy. The space around the warrior began to warp and twist, drawn into a growing vortex of distortion that quickly reached mammoth proportions.
Fragments of rock and debris began to levitate and spin chaotically around Marshmallow, drawn into the dimensional vortex-like objects in a mad spectacle. A shock wave seemed to radiate from the epicenter of the vortex, rippling the air itself in concentric waves of spatial distortion.
"Preposterous..." the Goat Horse muttered behind him, his tone reduced to a thread of awe. His eyes were wide open to the impossible as he helplessly witnessed this pure manifestation of mastery over reality.
Without warning, he switched to live, testing the other skill stolen from defeated foes, the dreaded Necrokinesis.
A suffocating stench of decay wafted through the air as if it were an emanation of death itself. Every single piece of decaying organic matter, from the putrid remains of eldritch creatures to scraps of now-burned flesh, seemed to answer the dark call of the Necrokinesis that Marshmallow had acquired. It was as if he had complete control over the cycles of life and death.
Marshmallow raised his hands, and the remains began to move toward him as if drawn by a magnetic force. Bits of rotting flesh and rusted armor twisted and crawled across the ground. Then they joined in a vortex, forming a monstrous creature with unnatural features. Marshmallow led this disgusting process, shaping the organic remains in horrible, unnatural ways.
"It twists... the death of the monsters I killed," Marshmallow said in a husky, almost euphoric tone. His hands molded the decaying remains, creating shapes never seen before.
At the center of the vortex, a semi-humanoid creature formed, an abomination of stripped bones and rusty blades. A creature with no face, no reason, no purpose other than to exist.
“Marshmallow ... what ... what are you doing?” the Goat Horse asked full of horror. He watched helplessly as the reanimated creature bellowed and drooled before his old battle buddy.
But Marshmallow felt nothing more. His eyes were blinded by power, lost in a delirium of total control over reality. He turned toward the Goat Horse, with an expression of cruel triumph on his once so brave face.
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“You see, my friend? I am the absolute master of this world now!” he shouted, growing madder and madder. He raised his arms in a gesture of defiance. “Nothing and no one can stop me! Reality ... life ... death ... everything is a toy in my hands! A toy with which I delight while--”
An immense shadow descended from above with an apocalyptic din, abruptly interrupting Marshmallow's delirium. A huge, grotesque mass descended deadweight from nowhere, a monstrous beast with inhuman features and tentacles laden with whirling teeth. The impact seemed to shake the very foundations of that corrupt realm, while a stench of cosmic death enveloped everything in a shroud of primal terror.
“You... are not... the master...of anything...” A flat, ghostly voice resounded from the bowels of the creature, a faceless entity that seemed infinitely old and eternally lurking. A tremor of pure cosmic chill seemed to spread from those lapidary words. “I am Serthar, the Ultima Lord of the Survivor Game.”
Marshmallow stood petrified. Serthar? He had heard that name before. It was - that Serthar?! The one he had heard about in the Ashenwood. Had he retreated to this place?
The Goat Horse could not take his eyes off that pulsing mass of tentacles and sharp fangs, his legs giving out as the most atavistic terror chilled his veins. No description could ever do justice to the sight of this misshapen creature, a living outrage against the laws of nature itself. Serthar had once been a satyr, his own creator Ezekiel. What on earth was he doing there? More importantly, how and why had he become such an abomination? What kind of perverse rituals must he have created?
"This... this is the real madness..." Marshmallow finally muttered after an eternity of cosmic silence. He swallowed with difficulty as if even this simple gesture required an immense effort of will in the face of the grandiose presence crushing them.
One of the toothy tentacles seemed to twist in an unnatural pirouette, only to break cleanly from the central body and launch itself in a deadly slash toward Marshmallow. The warrior narrowly avoided the decapitating blow by throwing himself to the side.
"RUN, MARSHMALLOW!" The Goat Horse's cry was a high-pitched gasp of pure terror as its hooves pawed through the dimensional distortions, desperately trying to find cover.
With a last burst of lucidity, Marshmallow managed to activate his Spatiokinesis to create a gap and move from there. But he sensed that this was only a temporary palliative. This entity was so powerful that it overwhelmed even his new dark powers.
"Damn it! I have to retreat for now! I can't face it like this!" he panted in desperation. Sweat dripped from his forehead, blurring his vision.
A flashing screen materialized.
Final Optional Quest: The Ultima Lord of the Survivor Game
Serthar, a satyr who, through the most perverse magic in existence, has become a transcendent cosmic being, the antithesis of all that is good. His very presence is a distortion of reality and he has now been released. If no one destroys him within 1 hour, he will rise from the Depths of Vesuvietna and will end the Survivor Game with an apocalyptic explosion of his own free will.
PLEASE NOTE: In case of failure, the team that does NOT activate this quest will be declared the winner.
Threat Level: Truly Impossible*
Time remaining: 1:00:00
***
Marshmallow gasped. His eyes were wide as he stared at this meaningless quest. He had to find a way to defeat the very embodiment of infinity in just 1 hour. This was insane! If he did not defeat this cosmic being, the Wyolands would lose the Survivor Game. He and all of his companions would have died. It would have been the end.
"No...we can't lose after coming this far!" he shouted, taking the Goat Horse with him.
A new message about the beginning of the countdown appeared:
Time Remaining: 0:59:37