The six Redmanes in the Abyss with Lifedrinker and Soulstealer were the first casualties.

  They became the nucleus of a spreading poison. A malady afflicting Redmanes in the physical world, starting in the heart of the ancient city called Eugorid.

  One by one, Redmane felt those bodies dropping out of his gestalt consciousness. It felt like a pair of frost-rimed shears clipping off his fingers, one by one, leaving the severed stubs unnaturally numb.

  In the physical world, the infected Redmanes twitched and convulsed, their crimson forms flickering like dying embers. Their eyes burned with the cold, malevolent light of Lifedrinker and Soulstealer. The swords’ voices echoed through the gestalt, a chorus of hunger and void.

  It seems we are most compatible, said Lifedrinker.

  Like consumes like, said Soulstealer.

  With the power of thy divine body, we shall be most formidable indeed.

  Perhaps we shall shatter the gates of Numantia ourselves.

  Redmane’s remaining bodies staggered, their movements sluggish as the infection spread. He could feel it creeping through the metaphysical threads that connected him to his spawn, threatening to consume them as well. It was a perverse reflection of Devourer—hunger turned against him, his essence devoured from within.

  He hadn’t often felt panic, of late. It was an unfamiliar state of mind. But as his mind began to cast about in search of a solution, it turned out that someone was watching over him.

  Mine husband, what has happened to thee?

  Thou art in need of assistance…

  I shall do what I can! I shall do my utmost!

  They were System prompts. But it was Flora speaking to him.

  For as far as the world of Volos was concerned, she was the System now.

  Throughout the city, the earth rumbled as the roots of her trees stirred. And then they shot from the ground like spears, entangling and impaling the bodies of the corrupted Redmanes wherever they happened to find themselves within reach of a tree. Which, thanks to Flora’s newfound strength, was the entirety of Eugorid.

  Once entangled, the auras of those dark roots flared bright blue, saturating them with some sort of paralytic or sleep effect. Whatever she was doing to them, it was making them temporarily docile.

  I do not think I can hold them in this state for long, husband…

  Thou must act quickly!

  The spawn—Vang, Zorn, Nuk, Throk, Dobrogost, Pietr, Gale the Ice Warg, and now the Five Heroes—reacted instantly to the sudden stillness of the corrupted Redmanes. As they were of the same flesh, they too sensed the change in them and knew to keep their distance. Gale unleashed a torrent of ice, freezing the paralyzed bodies in place, while Vang and his demi-human comrades tore through the rest, their claws glowing with the Flame of Redmane.

  Valtr, despite his missing leg, barked orders from the low parapet of a rooftop. “Don’t let the bastards break free!”

  Evelina used her limited healing abilities to keep them all on their feet, while Vengarl provided ranged support, his cheek raw from spending too long shoved up against the stock of his blunderbuss.

  More of Flora’s trees erupted from the ground, their black trunks and glowing blue canopies providing cover and restraining enemies. The battlefield was a chaotic mix of ice, fire, and glowing flora, the air thick with the scent of blood and ozone.

  But still, the affliction spread.

  And Redmane found he couldn’t meet it head on.

  As he turned on himself, all over the city, tearing at the corrupted bodies with tooth and claw, he merely accelerated Lifedrinker and Soulstealer’s spread.

  Redmane’s mind raced as the infection continued to spread. He could feel their tendrils worming their way deeper into his essence, their corruption spreading like a wildfire.

  There is no escape.

  Thou art nothing but hunger and void.

  Thy sapience is of little consequence.

  Whatever thou thinkest of thyself, of thy experiences, what lies beneath is the same as it ever was.

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  Redmane found himself observing a group of his corrupted bodies struggling to resist the entanglement of the dark roots of Flora’s trees. With a sense of helpless dismay. Their voices continued to taunt and torment him as they spread through his system with terrifying speed.

  But then his eyes caught on a certain detail. Focused on it.

  The metaphysical threads which bound his bodies together into a single consciousness. He’d glimpsed it moments ago, when this problem first manifested. But now that he concentrated, he could see them clearly, on command. They resembled threads, faintly luminous lines between them all, not unlike the diaphonous webs of a spider. Lifedrinker and Soulstealer’s corruption was spreading between those lines at speed, even from the ones held fast by Flora’s roots and made docile by her Skills.

  He could sever those ties.

  His claws held the power of the God Breaker. He never imagined he’d have to use it on himself, but if it worked, it worked.

  Redmane's eyes locked onto one thread. He saw the corruption spreading, a dark pulse moving along the line. He focused, claws ready, and struck. The transmission halted. Relief, brief but real, washed over him.

  He cut another thread. Then another. Each severance isolated the infection, containing it. The spread slowed, the relentless advance checked. Redmane felt the pressure ease, a momentary reprieve.

  Where is Vos, Redmane hoped Flora would hear him.

  Across the city from thee, my husband. He contends with what remains of the the Numantian legion. And with the parts of you that have fallen to the Crossed Swords.

  Tell him what’s going on. That golden sword he’s wielding can help stop the spread. Tell him to look with his higher senses. He’ll see threads which can be severed.

  At once!

  Redmane moved through Eugorid both physically and mentally, his consciousness spread out across all the bodies which remained his. Each targeting the invisible threads that connected him to the infected. In one part of the city, a Redmane leapt onto a rooftop, eyes fixed on the glowing line connecting him to a convulsing form below. His claws sliced through the thread, severing the tie and halting the spread of corruption. Elsewhere, another Redmane darted through the shadows of an alley, claws flashing as he cut through another thread.

  Each severance brought a momentary reprieve, a pause in the relentless advance of the infection. But it was not a pleasant sensation. It felt like severing one’s own limbs to prevent the spread of a flesh eating parasite.

  One of him came up to a large cluster of corrupted bodies tangled in the thick roots of one of Flora’s trees. He raised his claw to strike their connections to him, when a metallic glint caught his eye.

  The God Cutter.

  It descended with its master, arcing through the air from above, shearing through a thicket of corrupted threads. The despoiled bodies went inert, mindless and soulless.

  So, Lifedrinker and Soulstealer couldn’t actually control all his bodies without those connections. They could only occupy one body at a time, or perhaps two.

  Vos landed next to his father, gave him a stern look.

  “Already I wonder at the wisdom of my choices today,” he said.

  Redmane frowned back. “This was unforeseen.”

  “That changes nothing.”

  The message in his gaze was plain.

  Your mere existence is a danger to everything, it seemed to say.

  Vos’s arrival was a welcome sight, but his words carried a weight that Redmane couldn’t ignore. The younger god’s stern gaze spoke volumes. Yet, for now, they had a common enemy.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Redmane said, his voice tight. “Cut the threads. We can argue later.”

  Vos nodded curtly, his grip tightening on God Cutter. “Don’t think this means I trust you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  Together, they moved through the city, their weapons flashing as they severed the luminous threads connecting Redmane’s corrupted bodies to the rest of his gestalt consciousness. Each cut brought a momentary reprieve, but the process was agonizing. A necessary sacrifice, but no less painful for it.

  Each severed thread slowed the spread of the infection, but it was not enough. Lifedrinker and Soulstealer’s corruption was too deeply entrenched, their hold on Redmane’s essence too strong.

  “This isn’t working,” Vos said, his voice strained. “Our efforts purchase little time.”

  Redmane nodded, his three eyes blazing with determination. “We have to find another solution.”

  “There is one, and one only.”

  Redmane raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “They’re in your Soulspace. You have to travel within, and address the problem there,” said Vos.

  “But Soulspace is a deathless place. Nothing can be destroyed there, it’s already a corpse pile.”

  Vos held up God Cutter. “Perhaps not destroyed, but anything can be cut.”

  Both his eyebrows rose, and he slowly nodded in understanding.

  “Can you carry on for me here,” he asked.

  Vos nodded curtly.

  Redmane nodded back, and closed his eyes.

  Traveling within felt a bit like jumping into the Abyss.

  A blind descent, starting behind closed eyes and plunging down into his own private universe. The place where everything the Lord of Hunger had ever consumed came to rest. And apart from one ingenious young deity and the two mortals who were fortunate enough to chance across him on his way out, nothing escaped from this place.

  And when Redmane opened his eyes, he momentarily wondered if that rule would apply to him as well.

  A giant loomed above him, a towering mass of fused flesh and bone. It moved with long strides, each step a quake that shook the ground even as it absorbed the dead of the endless corpse field into its form. A grotesque tapestry of limbs, torsos, and faces twisted together across the surface of its body.

  In its hands, it wielded two immense swords. Black as the Abyss, one blade bore red runes, the other blue. They pulsed with the rhythm of hunger and void.

  Redmane stood below, eyes fixed on the colossus. The ground beneath him shifted, a sea of bodies—human, beast, divine—each a fragment of his past. The corpse field stretched to the horizon, an endless expanse under an orange sky.

  The giant's head turned, eyes like pits of shadow locking onto Redmane and advanced, the earth rocking beneath its weight. The immense swords in its hands rose high, their wicked runes glowing menacingly, poised to strike with malice. To obliterate him in one stroke.

  He wondered, momentarily, what would happen if those things should strike him here. Would he be consumed? Would this become the Soulspace of Lifedrinker and Soulstealer?

  Or would the thing that was once called the Lord of Hunger, Kraal the Devourer, carry on and collect another former name. Redmane.

  “Dost thou see the folly of thy ways now,” it boomed, in Lifedrinker’s voice.

  "Thy strength is naught but a fleeting shadow. Thy power, a mere echo of what we shall become,” said Soulstealer.

  And then, with a roar that shook the ruddy sky, the swords began their final descent.