He lunges. Inhuman limbs lash across the dais, each bound by muscle that crackles with magic and fallen divinity.

There is power to it, but it is not all powerful.

A fallen divinity is not god.

The god's limbs whip toward me.

These ones know battle, but this is beyond mortal combat. Each strike carries enough force to shatter stone.

I reach for the wolf bones merged within my frame. I need not the coiled form of wyrm but something equally monstrous and not standing knight. My skeleton cracks, reforms. Ribs flatten and curve into runner's legs. Spine stretches, vertebrae splitting into auxiliary joints. The iron mask shifts as wolf skull fragments emerge beneath it.

A tendril of corrupted divinity crashes where I stood. But I am already moving, four-legged though one claw still bears the blade. Aeternus adjusts to my altered form, blade extending from a grip of fused claw-bones. The weapon knows what I am becoming, death's champion in hunter's form.

More tendrils lash out. I weave between the strikes, each leap carrying my altered frame across water-slicked stone. The burial linens that trail from Lormenos's form snap forward, whip-like, seeking to snare legs.

A tendril catches my hind quarter. Bone splinters. I roll with the impact, letting the damaged pieces scatter rather than bind me. New fragments already crawl from within to replace them.

The corrupted god looms above me, his form a churning mass of burial linens and exposed divine flesh. Light pulses beneath the cloth wrappings, but it is wrong, tainted and sickly.

"The path proves all who walk it," Lormenos rasps, his voice coming from merged throats. "A thousand pilgrims sought my guidance. A thousand bodies feed my domain."

The cloth tendrils transform into horrific shapes, faces of the lost screaming in silent agony. Trapped faces press against stone - pilgrim's robes, traveler's cloaks, warrior's armor, all those who sought guidance through darkness. Now they feed his corruption.

"Did you think yourself special, bone-thing? That your borrowed frame makes you worthy?" His laughter booms in the chamber. "I was a GOD OF WAYFARERS! Now I am their ending, their final destination!"

I dodge another strike, letting Aeternus cut through a tendril. The severed cloth writhes on the ground before dissolving into black ichor.

"But you," his merged voices hiss. "You carry something within those bones. Something that remembers what I once was."

The corrupted god's form splits, divine flesh tearing as burial linens emerge. The cloth wraps around preserved corpses, pulling them from the stone. A knight in Haven's colors. Wall guards bearing familiar patches. A merchant with a map still clutched in dead fingers. Each preserved corpse moves to his will.

Black ichor drips from divine cloth. The water carries corruption.

These bones know what he once was. What he should have remained.

"Show me!" He roars. "Show me what makes you different from my collection!"

I leap between them. Aeternus cuts through cloth and preserved flesh. A tendril wraps around my wolf-skull. The iron mask cracks. I let it fall, revealing the merged bone beneath. The linen tries to burrow into eye sockets but finds only ancient magic there.

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The wolf bones guide this frame. My jaws snap shut on the cloth, tearing it apart.

Black tendrils multiply, forming a dozen thrashing limbs that crash down in unison. My wolf-knight form springs aside, balance shifting. Fluid, precise. The corrupted tendons smash into ancient stone, shattering.

Aeternus hungers in my grip as legion memories guide movement. I cut through limbs. They fall.

"Everything I once guided now belongs to me," Lormenos shrieks.

His collection attacks as one, coordinated by the burial linens wrapped through their flesh. The knight's sword clangs against Aeternus while scholar's fingers claw at my ribs. I roll away, letting damaged bones fall, already drawing replacements from within.

More corpses emerge from the walls, dozens of preserved bodies scrambling across stone and ceiling. A tide meant to overwhelm.

I shift stance, letting wolf instincts guide movement while legion memories direct the blade. Each strike must count. Each dodge must preserve bone for the next exchange.

"You are no pilgrim, no mortal. Yet you walk this path. Why?" Both voices roar as one.

I answer. I lunge. Aeternus stabs forward. I pivot hard on my hind limbs, twisting the blade deeper.

Lormenos staggers, cloth-limbs flailing wildly.

The water beneath ripples. Dozens of faces bubble up - pilgrims he once guided, now twisted into watery phantoms. Their arms reach for my legs as they moan for salvation. Each touch burns with corrupted divinity, threatening to unmake the magic binding my bones.

I plant my claws against stone and resist. The wolf bones guide my stance while dragon fragments reinforce my frame. I am not some wandering pilgrim to be claimed. I am death's champion, forged from battlefield vows.

Aeternus pulses in my grip. The blade remembers its purpose - to grant rest, not corruption. To end suffering, not prolong it.

I strike down, channeling power through the sword. Blue-white energy explodes outward, scattering the phantom hands. The water recoils, leaving bare stone beneath my feet.

Lormenos reels back, burial linens writhing. "What is this? What are you?"

I rise to my full height, wolf-skull raised. "I am the vow that guards Haven's walls. I am the oath that grants final rest. I am not yours to claim."

The corrupted god's form shudders. For a moment, his preserved half shines brighter, as if recognizing truth. Then darkness floods back. His burial linens stretch toward the ceiling as divine flesh tears open, revealing the horror beneath.

"Then prove it," he snarls. "Prove your worth on the Proving Path!"

I leap, fragments of bone shifting with practiced ease as I bound off the broken column. Wolf's cunning and knight's precision guide Aeternus in a perfect arc, blade trailing blue-white energy.

A harsh rasp echoes from both his throats. Corruption-tainted lightning gathers around his hands, twin bolts illuminating the chamber with sickly light.

I twist mid-air, letting draconic plates along my spine take the brunt. Lightning explodes against bone, leaving scorched furrows. But pain means little to this frame - the battlefield vow burns stronger than mere physical sensation.

"Is that all, dead thing?" Lormenos sneers. "Your shape changes, your sword kills. Yet you remain a mere shell?"

He whips again. I bring Aeternus up to parry, blade meeting cloth that rings like crystalline steel. We lock together, his faces mere inches from my skull. Those eyes bore into mine, one still holding faint starlight, the other consumed by void.

Raw strength drives me back, claws scraping through dark water.

The legion memories stir within. Aeternus pulses in my grip.

Atropos.

The name surfaces from depths of half-remembered knowledge. Not just another technique, but a promise of conclusion. Of severing what must be cut.

The runes along the blade shift, ancient script rearranging into patterns I've never seen. Power builds within the steel, drawing on the legion's final oaths. Aeternus grows hot in my grip, resonating with wolf bones and dragon fragments alike.

This is more than borrowed strength. This is the awakening of something slumbered.

Lormenos sees the change in my gaze and moves to strike. But he's too slow.

Atropos manifests.

Shadow-wyrm forms from blade's edge. Divine flesh splits. Corrupted sinew tears. The wyrm's jaws close around his core.

Lormenos screams with twin voices. One voice divine, one corrupt. Both end.

He falls. What remains speaks once: "My pilgrims. Where did I lead them?"

Then crumbles. Ash drifts where a god stood.

Water drains from cracked stone. Ancient wards fade. Gates groan open to dwarven paths beyond.

These bones move forward. Purpose remains.

The proving path lies conquered. One god falls. Others wait.

Haven's walls call.

But deeper paths beckon. Ancient roads where corrupted gods still guide lost souls to darker ends.

Atropos pulses in grip. The blade knows more work remains.

These bones carry hope forward.