Hell had manifested.

The first Segment of the Raid, the Marketplace of Corpses, had been desolate before. Pale sands and dark stones, dreary tents shifting in ceaseless winds – now all alight. Cacophonic laughter wafted over from the camp. Demonic entities danced in ashes and feasted on mankind. Blood rose in pillars. Dense shadows were cast by solid flame. It all would have been horrifying, had it not been artificial.

The path ahead was found between the tusks of the great, black stone that the Hellboar had emerged from. A slanted cut into the stone led deep into the ground. Black sand ran down the craggy stone in a rapid stream. They jumped from protruding rock to protruding rock to advance.

“The seals are broken,” the Hellboar’s voice thundered through the corridor. “The strength to cure this world has been found.” The party reached the bottom of the ravine. It opened up into a large chamber of black rock and volcanic glass. Opposite of the party was a gate. It pulsed with infernal power. Various runes on its surface were inactive, leaving only the rim of the two halves outlined with constant, blood red light. “Only one test remains.” The Hellboar stood hunched before the closed gate. “Fight.”

[ readied himself. The Apex was armed still with shield and spear. The toga of the day before had been replaced with a bronze cuirass over a white garb. It was a Roman outfit, no doubt about it, even if the shield and spear reminded more of Greek, particularly Spartan, aesthetics. Romulus owed neither culture credit.

Once the party had entered the room in full, the fight began.

Sand scattered where the Apex had stood. Shield raised, he bridged the distance as a comet of light and ice. The two elements had been Romulus’ favourite for the previous Segment and it appeared he had deemed to cling to them for this encounter. A proper choice, when the Hellboar was an embodiment of fire and shadow.

The creature met the attack head on. Bare knuckles slammed into a shield twice the fist’s size – which said more about the size of the Hellboar than the shield. Romulus was abruptly stopped midair. Still having his footing, the Hellboar was the one to strike next. Violently, it twisted its body around, catching the Apex with a hard kick.

Romulus stabilized his flight with elemental magic, crouched vertically on the wall, then launched himself at the Hellboar once again. An upward swing blocked his advance. Forced to land, Romulus ducked under a sideway swing, then stabbed upwards. The purple tip of his spear pierced the fur of the monster, leaving a shallow stab wound.

Raising a hoof, the Hellboar brought it down in a cataclysmic stomp. Romulus leapt back, right into the outer rim of the arena. The floor there glowed with horrid heat. John and the others narrowly made it out. Romulus only escaped after initial exposure to the heat. A second stomp elevated the temperature in another segment of the arena, this time failing to catch the Apex. The third stomp, similarly, only obstructed the Godslayer’s charge.

Breaking out of the hellfire curtain, the Hellboar charged with renewed violence. Of the various bosses John had fought, the Hellboar had been the most physical in terms of its basic move set. It was less mechanically driven than Raid bosses tended to be, and now boosted to be appropriately leveled for this part of the Raid, the creature put up a good fight against Romulus.

There was just one small issue.

“You must know what is in store!” The infernal gate on the Hellboar’s shoulders ripped open. Wings and eyes, red and wreathed in gold, were revealed. In the previous iteration of this mechanic, only the person that had looked in first had been pulled in.

John knew not to be that person. Glancing around, he noted that Romulus, Sol and Luna had all been struck by the effect. The trio at the peak of the Abyss stood slack-jawed and empty-eyed, faced with a vision built to tempt them while confusing their memories of the current situation. The Gamer remembered being subjected to this mechanic and, for all of his Wisdom, he had been wrestling with it for longer than most. Being easily tempted was one of his vices.

The Hellboar assailed Romulus without care for his stunned state. Two fists descended in violent union – only to grind against layers of frozen light. Three shattered under the violent blow, but seven remained. Seven that Romulus turned into blasts of scorching force with a thrust of his shield.

Temptation, so it appeared, was not the Apex’s sin.

‘I suppose this is the kind of wisdom that really comes with age,’ John thought and watched Romulus swing his spear in a wide arc. As he did, the tip extended into a gleaming blade of solar radiance. It evaporated more than it cut, taking a massive chunk out of the Hellboar’s chest. Ribs and muscles were equally turned to nothing.

Raising a hoof, the Hellboar attempted to stomp. Before the leg was brought down again, a silver disk appeared beneath. The moonlight barrier prevented the motion from connecting to the ground, thus disabling the rings of fire attack altogether. Unperturbed, the Raid boss followed his programming and went for the second stomp. Slicing rays of silver rose from the ground, piercing the boss in several spots before freezing in place. The chill of space spread through the arena.

‘I suppose it does make sense that Luna would have a secondary ice theming,’ John thought.

The Hellboar shattered the beams of light piercing his body and stumbled backwards. Dramatically, he collapsed to one knee. “It is… almost my time…” he grunted. The infernal gateway on his back crumbled. Runes on flesh and stone turned inactive. “Then… I SURRENDER IT ALL!”

The Hellboar’s form rippled. Fat layered on top of muscles, fur bristled, and the whole creature pushed up on its four limbs. The head bulked in size. The whole monstrosity did. The creature roared without any semblance of mind remaining, only an animal with the task to test.

[ demonic swine charged at Romulus. Despite his raised shield, the Apex was actually trampled by the creature. A path of glowing rock was left in its wake and shortly exploded into pillars of fire. Romulus emerged and spit out blood. His dark hair was slightly singed. He was taking damage. The same joy for combat that had marked previous days glowed in his eyes, strengthened once again.

Not stopping, the Hellboar trampled up to the wall and then continued to run over it. Gravity was a joke at its speed. John threw himself to the ground, avoiding the pillars of flame that erupted horizontally from the walls. ‘That could have been a cool mechanic,’ he thought.

Repeatedly, the boss charged at Romulus. The rest of the party went ignored, likely by compromise of Gaia. The Apex actually went to dodge and was nearly caught by surprise when the Hellboar stopped and twisted into a left hook. Nearly, that was.

The air rippled from the shock of the shield taking the blow. Romulus reciprocated the attack. The Hellboar immediately went for the next. What followed was an exchange of such speed that John struggled to follow it, and it only got faster. Both sides were laying into their enemy. The difference between them, however, was stark. The Hellboar was purely aggressive, swinging both arms in a wild assault. Romulus matched the aggression with his spear and magic, leaving him capable of defending himself against most attacks.

One thrust of silver, gold and dark turned the spear into a singular beam of magic. One thrust pierced the Hellboar’s chest. One thrust ended the fight in an explosion of particles and ash. “You… are worthy…” the voice of the creature faded away, leaving nothing behind.

“This boss has no Loot,” John explained. It had been that way for the first iteration and the second hadn’t changed anything.

“Disappointing,” Romulus admitted with a grunt and tore his cuirass off. The bronze armour was dented all over and shredded in a few places. It was placed in the Apex’s pocket dimension for either repairs or discarding.

The gate the Hellboar had been guarding began to open. Air hissed, an ancient seal breaking and allowing it to move into the next chamber. Because the air flowed with them, John did not smell anything unusual until they entered the chamber. By the time they did, he was not thinking about scents anymore.

The final boss of the Raid was a sphere of red, wreathed in gold. It was that thing that they had glimpsed at through the infernal gate of the Hellboar. It was a circle of blood and blotches of darker reds, covered in frayed feathers, hair, and eyes opening amongst pins and other decorations. Liquid gold swirled around it as if it was a miniature planetoid. The ceiling of stars, impossible so deep underground, only added to that. It hovered above a pool of liquid vice.

[ heart of the World Disease was not what John’s attention laid on. It was certainly not what made Romulus stop quietly in his tracks. Their attention lay instead with the woman hovering above the sphere. “I was pretty proud of this whole Raid,” she lamented. “Mechanics and everything. I put effort into these, you know? I can’t put it into hours or anything, but it is effort!” She sighed theatrically. “No point in you fighting this biblically accurate flesh ball with your configuration though. No amount of number adjustments will make the psychological horror angle work on a singular opponent.”

The woman raised her hands. Swirls of energy as green and turbulent as the curls of her long hair glowed. A magical circle, the colour of healthy leaves, emerged behind her. That was all the gesture it took her to rip apart the boss. The creature collapsed into nothingness. The chamber remained. In the void, she still hovered, The long back of her skirt draped over an invisible seat. More black fabric clung to her petite upper body. An artful one this day, appropriate for a gala, with shoulderless sleeves and semi-translucent, dark fabric that covered her cleavage and collar. Her thick thighs were, as ever, revealed, the Mediterranean skin of her crossed legs smooth.

Gaia smiled cheekily, “I know, I know, I’m just that stunning.”

[ supreme deity lowered her hands again, holding onto the edge of that invisible platform. An awkward tension filled the air. It was certainly awkward for John, who knew he was standing in the presence of a very complicated family situation.

“Why are you here?” Romulus asked.

“I’m everywhere,” Gaia responded with all of her usual snark. “That’s kind of the point why you keep hurling things at me, isn’t it?”

Romulus closed his eyes… and snorted with amusement. “Ten thousand years, two attempts to kill you, and yet you are still my niece.”

“Arguably,” Gaia answered, her smile dropping. “At least you aren’t trying to stab me this time.”

“My power has grown since then, but it is a mere drop compared to the gulf between us, god of gods. Besides, I know for certain now that I cannot take the Faith from human gods.” Romulus opened his eyes again. “My question remains, Gaia – why are you here? Was all of this your wish to prime me for a meeting with you?”

“Could’ve gone about that in a million better ways than to show you a few sad visions and then drop in at the end.” Gaia put her chin on her knuckles. “I just want to talk, if you can believe that.”

“…I cannot,” Romulus confessed.

“Urgh.” The supreme deity tilted her head to the side, then repeated the noise for emphasis, “Urgh! Why do you have to be so stuck up about me being in charge of things?! Even if you still think of me as just your niece, you have to admit that this ship is running! I can see inside your head, I know that you know that I know that you know that you could not run reality.”

“You choose to believe you are the dreamer. I am not so certain.”

“Yeah, see, people like you are why I have to smite people like Tiamat. Do you want to keep getting needled by the same dreams you try not to wake up from?”

Romulus sighed with all the weariness of an elder. “I want the truth.” Those words rang with finality in the chamber. “I want a reality unmarred by false barriers and artificial limitations.”

“I am no false barrier – I am what writes reality. What I decree becomes the law of nature.”

“So, you claim.”

“…Should I be here?” John finally managed to find a gap in the conversation big enough to chime in. Uncle and niece or Apex and supreme deity or whatever else those two were to each other both glanced at John.

“Stay or leave, I don’t care which,” Gaia stated. “I just want to… talk, Romulus.” The supreme deity sounded more like a young woman now.

A potentially terrifying prospect, that she had emotions so base, considering the reach of her power. A prospect that John had faced many times before. Whatever part of Gaia he kept interacting with, it was, by her own words, a fallible human avatar. An extension of an apparatus of power that encompassed all that John could comprehend, whether she was dreaming or not.

“I understand that you always try thrice… if you must do it once more to be satisfied… then I won’t stop you.” Gaia gave him a pleading glance. “Not until you break my laws. Until then… can we at least try?”

John could see the thoughts behind Romulus’ unmoving face. If he was right about Gaia being an artificial ruler of creation, then this could be the supreme deity attempting to end a threat to her existence by diplomatic means. If he was wrong about Gaia’s nature, then this was genuinely just a niece trying to reconnect with her uncle. That was just the surface of the dichotomy and only what John was aware of.

“I have time,” Romulus answered, finally.

The Gamer chose to see himself out at that moment. Strategically, it was a poor thing to do. He could have learned much about the nature of the world, Romulus’ weaknesses, and just general lore by staying. As a human, however, there was only one decent thing to do.

And so he went to be with his harem.