“You’ve heard of me!” said the Sage, pleasantly surprised.

  I knew of your coming. Kalagor’s tails bristled. Each tail was a single enormous Sacred Bone, rising slowly, pale serpents coiled to strike. Venom seethed at their ends. There, reality cracked like shattering glass.

  I will make your Bone a gift to my master.

  The Barbarian Sage let out an uproarious laugh. “I love it! That’s the spirit!”

  He looked out at the death-world before him, at the mountains on mountains of skulls.

  “Slaughter World?”

  So you know of this power.

  The Sage looked around, hands on his hips, marveling at it. “It’s been ages since I last saw this!”

  The Scorpion blinked. You do not seem to understand the danger you are in, human.

  The Sage scratched his chin, frowning. “You’re the one who put the poison in old Nog, aren’t you?”

  In time I will end him. Just as I end you now. The Scorpion drew itself to its full height. So much venom pumped through those stingers they started to leak from its ends, thin streams that shattered reality as they fell. Its tails started sagging under the weight of it all.

  “Will you, now?” chuckled the Sage.

  My name is Kalagor, End-Bringer of the army of Malzareth! The Scorpion advanced on him. Its eyes narrowed, one by one; the Sage’s attitude seemed to be wearing on it. Your time is long gone, Barbarian Sage, it hissed. I will lay you to rest.

  “Might be,” said the Sage. He cracked his neck. “Might be. I’m old, true enough! But I do still remember a trick or two. Enough to give damn near anyone a good scrap, I like to think.”

  His eyes gleamed. “You’re one of the better ones, are you?”

  Kalagor twitched. I am an End-Bringer of Malzareth!

  “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

  The Monster seemed to have had enough. You mistake me for a Monster King of old. But I am not like the Kings you once knew. Your hubris will be your undoing.

  Its stingers were fully loaded now. Aimed square at the Sage’s head.

  “Well I should hope you’re not like those old bugs,” said the Sage. He raised a hand, and his spear dropped into his clenched fist.

  A bone staff, and a midnight shard of a speartip. Simple—yet the moment it appeared, it bent the realm to its gravity.

  “If you were, I’d have come all this way for nothing!”

  He leveled it straight at the Scorpion.

  Then Kalagor struck.

  ***

  Just a few hundred miles away, deep in the bowels of a labyrinth of crystal-crusted tunnels, there was a nest built of some of the richest stuff in all the Wilds. A nest made of raw eternity emerald, stacked as high as a dragon’s hoard. A font of essence second only to the Everfrost itself.

  This nest was home to a Beast King. The Beast King of the Devil’s Cauldron—Sabas, He that Strangles the Skies. King of the Overlord Cobras.

  A behemoth of a serpent that lay upright at the midst of a giant rune circle. Its runes were written in a secret serpent’s tongue, carved with Sacred Bone fangs. And there Sabas communed with spirits unseen, drawing of their powers, channeling deep into the Astral Plane...

  His slitted eyes drew open.

  Seconds later, another Cobra slithered into the chamber, nearly as big. It was his First Fang—Silisius. An Empyrean in his own right.

  “An old human has infiltrated the deep forest,” hissed Silisius. “Shall I take the Fangs and dispatch him?”

  “Which human?”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “He seems to be in pursuit of the Monster,” said Silisius. He bared his fangs. “We can lay in waiting. Once they’ve tired each other, we can clean up the mess.”

  Sabas considered this, eyes narrowing. “Describe him.”

  “Long-limbed. Lots of lanky hair, even for a man. He bears a scar down nearly every inch of flesh.”

  Sabas let out a breath. “So the rumors are true,” he hissed. “The Barbarian Sage has returned.”

  “What does it matter?” Silisius’s tongue flickered. “I do not fear that man. He was sharp in his time. But it has been ages since... time will have taken its toll. Look at his fellow Rhinoceros.”

  But Sabas shook his head. “You are young. You do not know. But I am old enough to remember that man.”

  Sabas had hardly been out of the egg when the Sage had last come, but he’d seen the Sage fight once. It left an impression he’d never forget.

  “Listen carefully.” Sabas looked Silisius dead in the eyes. “As your King, I order you—do not engage at any cost.”

  Silisius looked puzzled. “Surely you cannot fear him, my King.”

  “That man has slain more Monster Royals than any other living creature,” hissed Sabas. “They called him the Bane of Kings! The only reason his kill count is not even higher is they learned to run when he came knocking. This Kalagor is young. He is prideful, and it has been too long... He does not understand.”

  The Beast King shivered.

  Silisius stared.

  It was the only time Silisius had ever seen the great King show true fear.

  “That man might well be diminished,” hissed Sabas. “But there was a time he had a claim to the deadliest creature not only in the Wilderness, but in all of Dragonspyre! If a shadow of a shadow remains...”

  He trailed off.

  A fluctuation moved through the air. A wave of higher gravity.

  “It has begun,” whispered Sabas.

  Even this far underground, they felt the reverberations.

  Then every ray of light for a thousand miles was sucked inward. Every mote of essence streaked toward an unseen center, so fast they left bright lines burning in their wake.

  Gravity sank deep, condensed around that center. That single point. And there a terrific density, a weight, came into being—at first the weight of a star. Then two. Then ten—it felt as though it were skyrocketing to infinity.

  There was a furious screech high above.

  And then the shaking began.

  ****

  The Barbarian Sage surveyed his work, hands on hips, brow furrowed.

  “Hmph.”

  He floated there midair. He stood alone. All the world lay beneath him.

  There lay a sphere of nothingness. The swamp, the trees, the bog, even the islands themselves—all gone.

  All that was left were distant chunks of hyper-dense matter, gleaming with a faintly metallic sheen.

  That nothingness stretched the size of half a planet. As though some massive deity had reached down and scooped out the heart of the Devil’s Cauldron. Lakes of void crackled across the skies like static.

  Floating a few hundred miles somewhere off to the east was a chunk that had been a tail. It’d been compacted to the size of a diamond.

  The other tail-chunk drifted a few hundred miles the other way.

  The Sage leaped down a long way, and hit the only solid ground for miles. The corpse of the Scorpion, crushed and compressed beyond recognition. He reached out and yanked his spear out of it.

  The moment he did, it dissolved to fine dust.

  “Bah!” grumbled the Sage. “After all that talk...”

  He sighed. Then shrugged. “Ah, well.”

  Then he brightened, as though remembering something. He stomped mid-air, and blasted off in a state of some excitement. He didn’t want to be late.

  His boy was going to war!

  At least one of them would be getting a good fight today.

  ***

  The Sage crash-landed, and barreled right back into the herd.

  “Did I miss it?!”

  “You’re just in time, dear,” said Guri. “Do settle in.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “And wipe yourself off, dear. Don’t you track Monster blood into my camp.”

  He laughed, and did.

  He found the bonfire stoked nice and bright. The herd was gathered ‘round. He plopped down, heaved a sigh, and a Rhino passed him some curds. He popped one into his mouth.

  Just in time.

  The picture showed Zane forging through an icy tundra. Lake Eternal was just up ahead, a vision of gleaming white and blue.

  “This is the big one,” he said. “You think an Ascendant’s ever beat a half-step True God?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” said Guri, plopping down next to him. “How’d the fight go?”

  “Bah!” He waved a hand. “It was no trouble,” he said. He sounded disappointed.

  Then he noticed another figure, halfway across the fire—“Nog?!” he said. “You’re up and kicking!”

  “You’re damned right, I am,” harrumphed Nog. “This is the future of the Rhinos we’re talking about—I’d better be awake! Is my hearing going, or did you get that bug?”

  “’Course I did!”

  “Got me in the rear while I was having a go at the other one.” Nog still looked rather miffed about it.

  “It’s starting!” said Guri.

  ***

  Lake Eternal was the biggest reservoir in all the Desolate Wilds. It was placed quite close to the Everfrost Glacier, which meant it had a constant flow of icefalls.

  He’d heard the waters here were so clear you could hardly see them. They were meant to look almost like air.

  It wasn’t hard to find the Monster. The trail of tar-gunk led him straight to it.

  It was like an oil spill staining half the lake. And at the center of it, floating on a barge of its own tar, lay the Dead Sea King.

  It was the biggest of the Princes he’d fought, and by far—it was the size of a warship. A craggy beast, armored with thick gray scales, but its most striking feature was its shell.

  You could hardly call it a shell—it looked like a fortress of bone and stone, crusting over itself in layers upon layers. He felt Sacred Bones in that thing, powered by a great reservoir of essence and high-tier Law.

  He could tell just by looking it’d be no easy thing to crack.

  And poking out of it in long rows… Zane blinked. Were those cannons?

  They were. Turrets and cannons—tar dripped slowly out of their mouths.

  The Monster had been feeding on the carcass of a giant whale when Zane approached the banks.

  Dead Sea King (Monster Prince)

  Essence Level 599

  There he drew his hammers.

  He’d only seen half-step True Gods once before. The most threatening thing about this beast, he knew, would be that pseudo-Reality Distortion Field. The thing that put a vast gulf between Minor Gods and True Gods.

  It’d be the first time in a very long time he could recall being at a clear Law disadvantage.

  He’d just have to fight through it.