Xipe-Totec scarcely found an end to his amusement. Not since discovering that place had he seen any despair so thorough. The three Horsemen, previously so haughty, were now just miserable piles in the sand. “No more glory for you, huh?” asked the Aztec chimera. His body of fused gods ached around the seams.

Keeping these divinities together was not an easy task. He succeeded. Since Macuil had made him undead, this was all his path had led towards. From the days of his active duty to the hundreds of years spent steeped in the Faith of Huitzilopochtli, Macuil, and his daughter in that seal, the Flayer Lord had been prepared for this form.

He rubbed his throat, raw from the attacks he had blasted at the riders and his incessant laughter. “If my lord feels gracious, perhaps he’ll allow you to serve him. He would hand you back your immortality as well,” Xipe-Totec kept mocking, as he turned towards the other assemblies of despair around him.

Huitzilopochtli, finally looking as broken as he always had been, was right next to his daughter. Seeing Nahua had the Flayer Lord raise whatever qualified as an eyebrow on his face, a mixture of man and panther. The demigoddess of gluttony was shielding the body of the little cat with her own.

‘Perhaps it will be best to kill the thing first to break her spirit,’ Xipe-Totec thought, slithering forwards. ‘We can teach her the proper cruelty later.’

Thunder cracked as the hand of the chimera god-warrior descended. Snapping back, Xipe-Totec avoided the sand-melting impact of the green-haired bolt of lightning. An even louder descent immediately followed. Raising one of his main hands, he met the living meteor head on. The fire scorched his palms. His claws cracked the stone, grabbing the woman within.

“Fucker!” screamed the fire spirit of the Gamer. Armour of black and incandescent metal prevented him from crushing her immediately.

Xipe-Totec kept on squeezing. The arcvolt elemental next to him showered him in a rapid series of attacks. He swatted at her like one would at a fly. She was a minor distraction while he choked the corporeal presence out of Salamander. Nahua had not known a whole lot about their individual capabilities, but names and number the Flayer Lord knew: 5 fighting elementals and 1 little crocodile.

‘Where two are, the other three can’t be far,’ the Flayer Lord thought, turning his gaze oceanward. A tidal wave of dark blue water moved towards them, on its crest a stone platform kept steady by the elemental standing atop it.

They crossed the distance within moments, having not been far behind their comrades. Summoning the might of Quetzalcoatl, the Flayer Lord blasted the wave with a destructive wall of wind. It stopped, but the rock had too much weight to be stopped by that alone. It continued to fly, the brunette on it then leaping towards Xipe-Totec.

The power in her little body was immense, but the Flayer Lord was beyond that in his current state. Boosting his countermeasures with gravitational magic, he would have completely neutralized the attack, had it not been for the fifth elemental suddenly surfacing from Gnome’s shadow. Siena slashed at the arms in passing, her form of shade and constellations rapidly moving to where Salamander was struggling against his grasp. A slash at his thumb’s tendon weakened the grip enough for the fire spirit to blast herself free. Fascinatingly, the attack had no negative consequences for Siena herself.

‘Nahua mentioned they never appear to harm each other. That was more than good coordination, then,’ Xipe-Totec analysed.

The five elementals pulled back, all coalescing between Xipe-Totec and the trio of Nahua, Huitzilopochtli, and Velka. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Salamander shouted over to the three Horsemen. “Get up! Where’s all the bravado?”

“Ah, yes, do please tell them,” Xipe-Totec gloated.

“Lord Death is gone,” Glory muttered, his voice delectably devoid of energy. “There is no point.”

“How dreadfully limp,” Siena groaned, to Xipe-Totec’s surprise. Had they already learned about the events? “You’re even more hot air than Salamander.”

“Hey!”

As they spoke, Gnome had turned around and knelt before Nahua, together with the water spirit that had flowed her way onto the beach. Healing magic was getting administered to Velka. Xipe-Totec let them do as they pleased. Any mana expended on healing the inconsequential pet was of benefit to him. Quiet words were exchanged between them.

A moment’s pause was also to Xipe-Totec’s benefit. The god-warrior stretched out his feelers into the Sanctum. Embodying, at least in part, three of the nine gods that powered the Eternal Sanctum let him try to find out what was currently happening. ‘The god-lock still isn’t resolved,’ he realized. The fusing had begun, then come to a sudden stop. The Grim Reaper struggling against his digestion was expected. ‘There’s someone else intervening,’ he realized, witnessing a massive, human presence that had lodged itself between the competing divinities. Impossibly, that presence only seemed to weave itself more intricately into the gaps. ‘That needs to be stopped.’

“Hey, asshole!” Salamander shouted at Xipe-Totec, who honoured her by directing his eyes to her. “We’ll make you regret toying with-“

“Salamander!” A sudden and brash voice broke through the conversation. Xipe-Totec was mildly amused by the tone. The elementals, however, appeared utterly surprised. Undine, Siena, Sylph, and Salamander herself all stared at the brunette in their centre. Getting back to her feet, Gnome turned her head enough that a singular eye stared up at the Flayer Lord. It shimmered with prismatic energy and disdain. “Monsters don’t deserve words.”

“I’m hurt!” Xipe-Totec cried theatrically. Then, he felt something cold on his skin. Confused, he gazed at the little bit of white on the back of his hand. It melted quickly. More tumbling flakes filled his visions in the next couple of seconds. ‘Snow?’

The fabric of the Eternal Sanctum around him trembled. Something new was rubbing against it, something even more powerful than the presence of the Grim Reaper or that human. Before Xipe-Totec could get what it was, the earth spirit in front of him turned around.

The heel of the brunette slammed down in the sand, bringing up curved pillars of stone all around the beach. Where they threatened to slam into the god-warrior, he broke them effortlessly. “Cute!” he roared and curved to the side, dodging the lightning streak that was Sylph.

Tracking the bunny-eared elemental was a low priority. Wind magic would warn him ahead of time if she tried something. Undine and Siena charging towards him was his immediate target. The former crashed into him as a mass of tendrils and teeth, the latter riding on her coat tails.

Still laughing, Xipe-Totec slashed through the writhing mass. Additional arms and zones of increased gravity kept Siena at bay at the same time. It was all just a distraction, a chance to test his new powers, not a serious-

Trees suddenly dug their roots into the beach all around him. Xipe-Totec sensed the magic still pulsing through them. More of the butterflies they had sprouted from were swarming around him. More trees were forming while the first ones went from just roots to mighty, tall constructs of stone, so much sturdier than the pillars the earth spirit had created initially.

It was not the trees that had Xipe-Totec alarmed, it was what he saw when he tried to manoeuvre out of them.

Leaping between the surfaces, vertical, horizontal, and slanted, was Sylph. Her speed ramped up further and further with every bounce. Already she was too fast for even the Flayer Lord to follow. Rather than just her, he saw a streak of blue and green and where its last three turns had been.

‘I need to relo-’ The beginning of a new plan was killed in its infancy. A meteorite slammed into Xipe-Totec’s torso with enough force and weight to knock him off balance. Attention snapping to its origin, he saw Salamander and Gnome together weaving a second stone of such magical and physical denseness. It was no larger than the brunette’s palm, despite the apocalyptic fire wreathing when she gripped it. Pulling her arm back, she threw it with earthquaking might.

Xipe-Totec barely managed to swat it aside. Tendrils of water and shadow rose from all around him in that same instant, rising from the scattered chunks of slime and saltwater that rested in the pillars’ shade. Siena and Undine combined their magic in their own combo.

‘CONSOLIDATE!’ the Flayer Lord roared at himself. The single word was the only plan he had and he put it into action not a split second too late. Surrounded by supersonic lightning, Sylph descended on him.

Faith bloated the form of the Flayer Lord. That brief moment in time where the green-haired air spirit cut through him, he was a mount of flesh, organs, feathers, fur, and blood. The pain of being scorched all the way through was enlightening. It was replaced with a latent sensation of power.

The serpentine form was replaced, in an instant, with a humanoid one. Not even as tall as he had been before, the Flayer Lord stood in the jungle of broken stone pillars and elemental trees. There were only two arms now, ending in modestly sharp fingernails. His naked legs were toned, as was his midriff. On his shoulders, the skulls of panther and serpent proudly presented what he had taken. His skin sparkled like diamond, a translucent and faceted layer above exposed muscle fibres, decorative strings of fat, and working organs. Black lips curled into a smile. Six wings stretched, created from oddly conjoined human ribs and skin.

“Thank you!” Xipe-Totec declared. “For forcing me to evolve yet further!”

There was no response.

The five elementals immediately went to attack him again, but it was like they were moving through tar. All of the landscape was his to command. ‘So this is what it means to be a god in his Sanctum,’ Xipe-Totec thought and curled his index finger.

The singular gesture shifted Sylph from near him to before him. The ascended Flayer Lord caught her immediately with his foot. Such power was in the motion that he, rather than fling her back, ripped a hole straight through her abdomen. It was like punching through water.

Another thrown stone cracked the surface of Xipe-Totec’s skin. ‘Bothersome,’ he thought and scratched the place of impact. It was right next to the gash below his sternum, a remaining mark from Glory’s attack earlier that still had not healed. “So many insects,” the Flayer Lord groaned, then grinned. “LET’S CRUSH YOU ALL!”

Siena had leapt for him. Her extended claws were narrowly evaded, her wrist grabbed and then Xipe-Totec slammed her down on the floor. He had just enough time to place his foot on her chest and rip the arm out by the socket, before he was forced to meet Undine’s descending mass with both of his hands. His palms opened, releasing a fine spray of his very own blood. The red mist mixed with a gust of wind, blasting the water spirit away and into a million droplets.

Salamander came in next. “You’re just no issue when I am able to move around your little plans,” the Flayer Lord mocked her, slapping aside the storm of individual stabs. Swords, spears, or axes, two arms, four arms, or six arms, it did not matter. Xipe-Totec had a hand free to yawn demonstrably while he kept the fire spirit at bay.

Changing his strategy when Gnome charged in, the Flayer Lord brought his foot down. A gravitational pulse spread out from the impact, reinforced by the control Xipe-Totec had over the space itself. All around him, the invaders were made to kneel, collapsing to the ground.

“That’s it!” the Flayer Lord declared, arms raised triumphantly. “That’s where you belong!”

So many hundreds of years to get to this point. Xipe-Totec rubbed his smooth chin and grinned again. He had missed having skin quite a bit. Tasting the moment, he knelt down in front of the earth spirit. Grabbing her by the chin, he smirked at her defiant gaze.

“You really piss me off,” Gnome hissed, the prismatic light still in her eyes.

“What happened to not talking to me?” Xipe-Totec wanted to know. “Monsters don’t deserve words, right?”

“It’s a distraction.”

Xipe-Totec glanced around at the other immobilized elementals. All he had to be wary of was them combining into something stronger. There was nothing else to-

The snow fell again.

Xipe-Totec felt a dual strike hammer against his control of the Sanctum. The space next to him was rent open. He clamped it shut as swift as reaction allowed. For a short moment, he saw a small woman with long, dark hair and a golem wielding a mace. Before either could cross through, the tunnel was slammed shut again, only a singular, golden object flew on through.

A flash of light turned the egg-shaped thing into a massive crocodilian, galloping on long golden limbs. The Flayer Lord twisted and stretched out his arms, grabbing the edges of the maw about to clench down on him. Serrated, golden scales surrounding the actual teeth of pure silver sliced into Xipe-Totec’s palms.

The second strike hammered against his control. It was in itself a series of reverberations. That incredible might pressed against his control once again, finding its manifestation in voices.

“Let us bring light!” the crocodile roared.

The beginning of a Babel Phrase returned Xipe-Totec to a state of panic. With all of his might, he turned the attack of Stirwin around, slamming the light spirit into the ground. That should have been the end of the incantation.

“All shadows cast be ours,” hissed the shadow spirit.

Xipe-Totec turned his attention around immediately. A lance of crystal blood slammed into Siena’s shoulder, nailing her against one of the stone pillars.

“The tides will turn,” Undine sang.

‘A conjoined incantation?!’ Xipe-Totec thought, turning his attention away from the water and shadow spirit and to the three that had not yet talked. Who would be next, who did he have to interrupt?

“Our voices join!” Sylph declared.

Xipe-Totec had been moving towards her. His fingers curled in the air, grasping where she had been before finishing her words. Already she was back between the pillars. ‘It’s going to be her last!’ the Flayer Lord realized, focusing his attention on Gnome.

“Let the unjust burn,” vowed the fire spirit.

Xipe-Totec’s form swelled as he forced his might into physical reach. His arms grew longer, his legs thicker, his chest broader. In all of his deformity, he hurried towards the earth spirit. The prismatic light in her eyes was overflowing now.

“As I make the seasons change,” Gnome declared.

What had pressed against the Eternal Sanctum gushed out into it. The ground around Gnome’s feet rapidly transformed. The sand of the beach was replaced with pine needles and ice, a winter landscape so pristine and perfect it could only come from one place.

The dress that covered the season elemental changed colours, turning a blue that befit the winter fragment of the elemental planes. ‘The shy one is the leader of the elementals – I don’t get it either. I think she’s a little dull, personally,’ Xipe-Totec remembered Nahua’s report.

There was nothing dull about Gnome.

The winter chilled Xipe-Totec to the bone. He felt slow. The awareness the Sanctum had brought him was wiped away. In its place entered the horrid pain of the brunette’s fist slamming into his abdomen.

Xipe-Totec was flung back. His wings spread, stabilizing his flight. ‘I got to leave!’ he thought, turning around. He could see the plague ocean not too far away. The incantation worked around the season elemental, so if he just moved far enough away from her, then-

Winter was replaced with a dark night. Xipe-Totec beat his wings twice, before Siena rose from the lightless void that painted the surface of the pillars. Landing on his back, the midnight elemental sunk the claws of her remaining arm into the back of his neck. Repeated stabs of her tail killed his attempts at flight. He slammed against a pillar, made invisible by the lightless environment.

As he fell, the lightless realm was replaced with one of light all around. Siena leapt from his back, making him tumble. Xipe-Totec stabilized, staring down the maw of a crocodile that was growing by the second. As the celestial sparks of the fragment of the Kingdom of Light drifted into the scales of the massive creature, the Aztec god-warrior thought two words, ‘Celestial Devourer.’

Opening his own jaw, the Flayer Lord unleashed a blast of blood, wind, and gravity. The rebound of the attack ripped through his own body, but it only mattered that it delivered him from being gulped down by the eater of stars. Ripped apart from jaw to tail, the crocodile was turned into a non-factor for the time being.

Xipe-Totec landed on some kind of moon surface. He looked up just in time to see the world change around Gnome’s feet again. White rock turned into desert sands. A heat that even he, a child of the north Mexican desert, found uncomfortable descended.

With it came Salamander.

The speed of the apocalypse elemental had increased tremendously, as had her strength. When Xipe-Totec met her in direct combat this time, he was scarcely her superior. Still, he managed to keep her at bay. Had it been a direct fight between them, even the boons she got from standing on a fragment of her home realm would not have helped her.

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS!” the Flayer Lord roared. “IT’S NOT FAIR! WHAT HAVE YOU SUFFERED TO BRING YOU THIS FAR?! WHAT SACRIFICES HAVE YOU MADE?!”

No answer.

A dual swing of two swords left both Salamander and Xipe-Totec wide open. In that instant, fire was replaced with wind. Gusts blew through grass that was too green and sharp. A blue streak descended on Xipe-Totec, filling his every nerve with electricity.

“HUITZILOPOCHTLI!” The Flayer Lord roared. “I DEMAND ALL BACK! THE SACRIFICES I HAVE MADE! THE BLOOD I HAVE SPILLED TO YOU! I DEMAND IT ALL!” For all the power the Flayer Lord had stolen, that ability was still that of the genuine god. A power that Huitzilopochtli was dominated by. To refuse the answer was to suffer and die.

No answer.

“HUITZILO-“

Xipe-Totec had to turn his attention to Gnome. Once more, the ground changed. Howling winds stopped and a forest filled with gargantuan trees of stone took the place of the pillars. In it, the only clear line was that between the Flayer Lord and the season elemental. One arm pulled back, she was ready to throw something.

‘I can take another stone,’ Xipe-Totec decided. ‘This is a distraction!’

Sylph was right back to leaping between the trees. The leaves only made seeing things harder. As if Siena and Salamander weren’t making everything difficult enough. The two were circling around him like sharks, ready to pounce on him at any moment.

‘Wait, if Salamander is there, then what is Gnome going to throw?!’

Xipe-Totec returned his primary attention to the season elemental too late. The arm was snapping forwards. Nothing flew from the hand. Rather, the consolidated blob of deep, deep blue stretched and stretched like a weight attached to a sinew. The end grew larger as it crossed the distance, opening up into an Unleashed maw, worthy of a creature of the deepest sea. In it was the wrathful calm of the abysstide elemental, sitting amidst the teeth like a torso made tongue.

Arms and teeth grabbed the Flayer Lord’s arm. The stretching force reversed, just as Gnome pulled it all in. The combined power ripped Xipe-Totec off his feet.

Pulled into an ascending foot, the Flayer Lord was moved upwards just a few metres, before the combination of rubbery slime and strings made from moonlight ripped him back down by flesh and shadow. He slammed into the ground. The foot that had just gone up came straight back down, the heel shattering the diamond on his back.

Xipe-Totec sliced off the bit of Undine attached to him. The teeth kept on gnawing, but that gave him enough manoeuvrability to roll onto his back. Kicking aside a meteor, he managed to get on his feet.

It was worth nothing. Even standing, the Flayer Lord was disoriented. Wherever he turned, there was an elemental attacking. Salamander stabbed at him with her fire-made weapons, Undine swirled all around him, Siena sliced with her claws, Gnome hurled her fists, and throughout it all, Xipe-Totec had to keep track of the arcvolt elemental.

Sylph leaped downwards.

Xipe-Totec dodged forwards.

‘A feint!’ the Flayer Lord realized a moment too late. The bunny-eared elemental just landed on the ground and immediately leapt back into the canopies.

Walls of stone ripped out of the ground around him. His moment to escape such a construction had passed when he had dodged. There was no direction but forwards, where the brunette and her brown, disdainful eyes blocked his path. Already her open hand was coming for him. She should have been too slow to hit him. She would have been too slow to hit him. He just had nowhere to go!

The cracked and shattered diamond skin burst off entirely. Like tempered glass, the shards of translucent material flew everywhere, while Gnome’s hand sunk deep into the gash Glory had carved earlier. The Flayer Lord let out an undignified sound, while his organs were ruptured. The only one that still mattered to an undead like him was grasped. The vertebrae of his lower spine were crushed by the pressure.

Xipe-Totec lost the grasp on his stolen power. His flesh rapidly rotted, turning soft and almost liquid. His torso fell off where the spine had been broken. Landing on his back, he felt the undead animation flow from his veins. “Huitzilo… pochtli… I demand… my… sacri…”

The end of the first and last god-warrior was a whimper.