Chapter 1024 – Star Sanctum 4 – Creeping Chaos


    Enki flew across half the room and landed on his metallic side, scratching a path into the stone as he slid further. Running up to the edge of the Starkiln, John jumped away with such strength that the stone caved behind him. Enki encapsulated himself with a Mana Barrier and threw several dozen spells at John. The latter were taken care of by the re-activated Particle Skin. The attacks broke on the mana, layered on his skin.


    Once he was in range, he teleported through the barrier again. Enki had wizened up to that strategy already and created a second barrier between himself and the Gamer. John tried to teleport past that as well, but Enki was one step ahead.


    ‘Raw violence then,’ John thought and rammed his hands into the Mana Barrier. What should have been impossible to achieve with bare hands was enabled thanks to the Spellripper Perk. As long as Particle Skin remained active, John could tear apart magical weavings. With one mighty pull of his arms, the second shield folded and he continued his offensive.


    Enki was in the process of analysing his spells and John aimed at his head with the sole purpose of interrupting that process. Unsurprisingly, the Starforger had an easier time sealing spells out of the arcane school. That was where his knowledge lay. Even for those spells he knew by heart, he needed to analyse them for a couple of seconds and he could only analyse what he was seeing.


    That was one reason why John had kept Particle Skin hidden until now. As long as he had the mana-based shield, he was practically immortal. At this moment, he had almost four million MP and regenerated 3% of it each minute. This more than made up for the fact that the Arcweaver Modification only raised Strength and Agility, not Endurance.


    What had been meant to weaken him had, with the right loadout choice, elevated John to someone who could pummel a high dragon god. Enki teleported away using Magus Step, or something of similar strength, but John was so fast that he was right on the god’s tail. Quite literally, as he grabbed Enki by the tip of his. The god of stars attempted to fly away, only to be slammed overhead and into the floor.


    A flash of magic prevented the Starforger from taking the damage of the impact outright. Cracks spread through the ground, but John had no time to care about that. Already, Enki’s silver eye was back on him. Several layers of barriers formed between him and the god. The Gamer shattered his way through them as quickly as could be done.


    Enki’s victory condition was clear: he had to take away whatever made John so incredibly powerful. Because he would have never encountered something like a Modification, the god of stars would need a relatively long time to analyse and seal it. That time could only be bought if he first sealed the remaining Skills the Gamer had. In the end, it was a simple three step guide: 1. Seal Particle Skin 2. Seal the Modification 3. Win.


    John''s victory condition was just as clear: he just had to beat the god to a pulp before his spells could be analysed. Something he worked vehemently at, tearing through the final layer of the new barriers and once more launching himself at Enki.


    The Starforger had carefully positioned his right side towards John. Even with his current might, Astrotium remained an incredible obstacle. The material didn’t dent, the black rot that bound it to the decaying body absorbed the shock, and so John had to waste precious seconds moving around the dragon and attack his weaker left side.


    “How predictable.” Even with pain in his breath, the god still managed to belittle his enemy. Silver ripples spawned in the air around John and chains of mana came rushing out. There were too many of them to be created in an instant.


    ‘He lured me here,’ the Gamer thought and weaved through the attacks. Enki was incredibly slow compared to John, but the same could not be said for the chains. In their vast quantity, they threatened to catch John. The damage he wasn’t concerned about, but he couldn’t be immobilized.


    “Chains of Babylon,” Enki hummed. “A spell of my own design, an improvement from that basic Mana Chain you used earlier.”


    John hated to hear the god talk. Prone to monologues as he was himself, he could only afford to do so when he had the clear advantage. Focused on dodging, he kept his tongue still and his senses focused on the steady torrent of chains. It was to no avail. They came from all directions and one finally caught him by wrapping around his arm.


    “Tia...mat...?” The voice of Enki was tormented. Even though Tiamat spoke through the countless mouths that opened on her skin, the god of stars had little control over his vocal cords. Visibly, the corruption of the goddess of chaos expanded beyond the Astrotium armour, gnawing at the radiant scales of her son.


    “Yes, Son, it is your mother, your beloved mother.” The carefully crafted copies of Enki’s beautiful horns spread out, as the Lorylim matter swelled and turned the protrusions into its individual segments. The tentacles wrapped around Enki’s head. It started as a disgusting but tender caress, but turned ugly within moments. Invading the ear and the eye socket of Enki, they slithered deep inside him. “I’m sorry I left you alone and confused for so long. I need your body. I demand my flesh back – the flesh we crafted you from.” Her tone switched to greed, while mouths progressively burst out from underneath the shining scales, laughing endlessly. “I would have taken you earlier, Enki, if you hadn’t been so weak. Your body rotted at my mere touch. Leaving you to reinforce it, that was the only true way to get a body. My flesh... MY FLESH! YOU ALMOST SQUANDERED IT!”


    John was struggling against the bindings, waiting for his Stats to roll back into a favourable configuration. The teeth were biting into him, as Tiamat’s eye opened in the previously empty right socket. It wasn’t like the typical Lorylim eye, a mycelium structure with an iris, but instead a proper dragon eye with a slit pupil. It started as sulfuric yellow, but gradually changed colour in its entirety, never settling on a definitive one.


    “Do not worry, Son, it will be alright. Mother Chaos will take care of everything. The same goes for you, John.” A long, slimy tongue, smelling like brackish water, reached out to John and licked him across the face. “Don’t worry, you will serve too.”


    ‘That doesn’t sound so ba- STOP IT!’ he thought. Something about Tiamat’s voice was deeply enticing. It sang to his brain, to his open wounds, with the elegance of a harp and the intensity of a drum. He felt his Strength surge back and burst out of the arm holding him without issue. Immediately, he hurled his fist at Tiamat, but his Agility had not followed suit. The dragon, if it could still be called that, skittered on hundreds of legs, while Enki’s regular ones were dragged along.


    “You won’t have the strength to resist much longer,” Tiamat hummed.


    ‘My king, I...’ Metra reached out to him, almost hesitatingly. She had to overcome something, her rage was restrained and her loyalty torn. Inside her mind, he could hear that same song.


    ‘Stay – away!’ John commanded her and hoped desperately that Rave and Nia obeyed the same. ‘Not yet...’ he told himself, clutching the object in his right. He wanted to do something, anything at all, no matter how effective. ‘Nothing rash. Bide your time.’ He charged at the goddess of chaos, attempting to land another hit. A moment before his fist connected, a window opened up.


    The mana surge was incredible, bringing his Max MP to over one hundred million, but his Stats collapsed in the same moment and his fist sunk into the parasitic mould that was Tiamat’s flesh. “It all has purpose,” Mother Chaos whispered sweetly. “Nothing. The purpose of it all is ultimately nothing. Validation is found in our moments of desire. Follow the impulse. Cut off your arm, scream your lungs out, laugh with me, be the entropy and eat all you wish to.”


    “I’m a bigger friend of the long path,” John growled through clenched teeth, casting the last arcane spell he still had access to. 117’781’699 MP were claimed in an instant by Arcana Strike. John grinned victoriously. “You are a disgusting thing,” he monologued, ignoring the teeth pulling his right arm deeper into Tiamat’s avatar. “I despise everything you are. Nihilistic, corrupting, worming your way into the lives and minds of people and ripping everything away from them just so you can keep existing. The only virtue you have is your inability to think ahead. Because of that inability, I win.”


    “Chaos is opportunity,” Tiamat scolded him, like a disappointed mother. Simultaneously, the Arcana Strike disappeared, sealed away like all other of John’s combat spells. All of them save one.


    “Chaos is what tears things down. Where you are unpredictable, you win. Where you are predictable, you are the weakest force I’ve ever faced,” John’s grin never wavered. The Arcana Strike wasn’t his victory condition. It was merely the best spell to enable it. He extended his right hand and presented a golden egg to the eye of the goddess of chaos. He basked in the window that appeared next.


    “For the sake of all that died to get me here, for Mark, I hope this hurts,” the Gamer growled. The egg in his hand cracked open and...


    ...a roar to tear the heavens hailed the awakening of the true Celestial Devourer.