Inside of Hoztang’s realm, right in front of the position in the space where his portal collapsed, Hoztang tried his best to suppress the pain that was coursing through his body like thousands of bolts of lightning, tearing him apart bit by bit from the inside.

The ripples of space and time from the portal that failed to come into fruition still lingered, and Hoztang tried to create a portal once again, but the immense pain in his body not only slowed down his reflexes and his movements, it also disrupted the flow of energy inside of his body, which caused his multiple attempts at creating another portal to all fail.

“Fuck!” Hoztang cursed in his own language, and he tried to focus his mind to create yet another portal as he pushed himself to the limits trying to get away from the Defiler that was chasing him but was injured and temporarily incapacitated by the structure created from the piece of white crystal given to him by that wretched human.

At this point, Hoztang was already close to the edge of his very own realm - and he had accepted the fact that should he want to escape without the portal, he would have to go outside of his own realm and kingdom, something he decided he would not do lightly a long time ago.

But just this moment, the dark shadow of a ferocious fish with a long spiked tail and two legs with the rough structure of dogs’ hind legs appeared in front of him, right between the edge of Hoztang’s realm and Hoztang, which was also between Hoztang and the position of his portal. This shadow flapped its tail, which landed right on the side of Hoztang’s wide face and sent him crashing towards a small floating island in the air.

When Hoztang struggled to raise his head at the Defiler that was floating “above” him on this small floating island, he felt that his body was at the brink of disintegration - the pain he was enduring was now exacerbated by the attack he just received.

“It’s such a pity.” The Defiler said in a gloating and condescending tone: “If you hadn’t lost that large part of yourself, you probably would have succeeded with that portal, and you would have probably made it out alive. Probably.”

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“How is this possible?” Hoztang did not respond to the Defiler’s sneer, but asked a question: “How can you do this? You shouldn’t be able to teleport like that! You shouldn’t - the order of the world binds you! The fabric of the laws of the Will and reality binds you! How - ”

The Defiler couldn’t wait till Hoztang finish before he bust out laughing, the sound of his laugh sent out ripples and waves through the space and time in this chaotic realm, shaking every floating island, every twisted and crooked tree and grass, every stone and every rock. The “ribbons” formed by the pulled out shadows of living creatures around some of the islands weeped even harder, and the ribbons themselves began to show signs of breakage and ruin under the influence of the laughter.

“The order of the world? The fabric of the laws of the Will?” The Defiler asked, with droplets drool spitting out of his mouth: “Do you think, even for one brief moment, that your realm, your kingdom, still has much of those left? With your every whim, every word, every blessing you gave to your sycophants, every curse you placed on those who defy and disrespect you, the world breaks with them. ”

“Yeah, I figured - I figured.” Hoztang shook his head: “Okay, last question - why target me? Why me?”

“Oh, Hoztang, why ask the question when you already know the answer?” The Defiler slowly descended from the air and got closer to Hoztang: “You were handed the answer the moment you lay your hands on the godhood. You just didn’t think you would actually need to face the consequences, did you? At the very least, when you fell, you could have let it go. But you didn’t.”

“Because that power, that godhood is MINE!” Hoztang responded with anger and frustration: “There’s no one more fitting! I will never let another have it!”

“And here, the Overlord of Despair and Purposelessness is about to expire with the remnant of the past glory and horror he surrounded himself with.” The Defiler grew a long claw on its side, shaped just like a foldable blade: “It’s ironic, really, because I - millenia ago, was once in your position, holding the very same godhood as you did. But I chose to give it up.”

Without a response, Hoztang’s body shot out at least a dozen spikes at the Defiler, but the Defiler’s body just shifted out of the way, and the claw just penetrated Hoztang’s flat head.

The entire kingdom and realm shook, cracks in space and time crawled all over the inside of Hoztang’s kingdom. A small orb of light arose from the swiftly crumbling and decaying body of Hoztang and was slowly pulled into an energy vortex. The Defiler stared at the orb, not doing anything to stop it from being pulled away, while its claw was hollowing out the body of Hoztang from the inside by draining the last bit of energy remaining in the body.

The orb of light was smaller and weaker than the last time this Defiler saw it, it contained less order, and less power. And even if the Will has it back, it will take a long time to fully heal, or it may never heal at all.

Just like father said it would.