Undeath energy ran rampant through the remains of both worlds crashing and pinning against each other. It threaded through the remains of their fibres, hijacking channels where their 'life' should have been gushing; it pumped them with a new kind of power.
Soon, the resplendent and dull colours of both collapsed worlds surged in an angry red hue. But so did the great void around them, leaking in the crevices and gaping holes.
This was a wake-up call for Skullius… and the Deity who had made the fishmen world with his own Deific body. A jarring throng of light and Amras collected like a giant sun from the remains of the world (indeed, a powerful soul) and shot away hurriedly, piercing through the great void in its retreat.
The instant a Lich had shown up, the Deity, who had actually resolved to fight Fulgardt, turned tail. Battles against Liches in these circumstances rarely ended well for Deities. Arch-Liches were monsters who could tame the souls of Divines even without being Divines themselves. What more the prowess of High Liches?
Skullius cursed for the umpteenth time.
'Dammit, Somanda!' he thought, but then Fulgardt was sending him flying off into the great void with a forward kick.
Somanda made fair use of the moment.
In a fashion that almost seemed too comical, the remains of Lumen and the fishmen world shuddered vigorously, clashing against each other to create a vibrant rumbling noise. Somanda pulled at the remains of the sky onto which he had applied the Undeath technique, New Awakening Undeath, Revenance, on. He might have been pulling a cloth stuck in a thin crevice.
But with this odd pull came a frightening phenomenon.
Somanda dragged… a world-sized soul from the dead world!
It was pale, ugly and without a robust shape, but a soul nonetheless.
Skullius could hardly believe what he was seeing.
He failed to comprehend the skill of the High Lich even further when Somanda channelled fine cords of Undeath energy into the massive soul, and effortlessly separated it into one hundred portions. Each of them hurriedly flew back into the collapsing fishmen world for something in crazier.
Why was all this possible?
Well, Undeath was the most 'realistic' way to escape extinction, as far as Emmae – its progenitor – was concerned.
In her study of life and death, she found that these absolute concepts were access to aspects of reality that even the greatest of Divines could not perceive back in her time.
For instance, for the longest time, living beings had never known that there were two types of souls in the wider reality: organic and inorganic souls. The former belonged to sentient intelligent life and the latter belonged to objects.
However, neither was superior or inferior to the other. What mattered was how each reacted to life and death.
Organic souls had a stronger connection to death, and inorganic souls had a stronger connection to life. Emmae had suspected that for the former, the reason death pursued them so, was because they were detailed and complex, while life energy pursued the latter for the opposite reason.
And yet, despite these differences, organic and inorganic souls could be traded between all kinds of lifeforms with the right skill. That right skill… was most prevalent in the power Emmae forged with her knowledge: Undeath.
This was the power inherited by the Liches, a true understanding of the very contours of every kind of soul.
And that was how Somanda knew he could split a large inorganic soul and use it to power smaller, individual inorganic units.
Pieces of shattered sky bonded to dry earth and the dull chunks of Lumen to form horrific beings that flared with the powers of Undeath. Some of them were humanoid, some were not, but all were gigantic and more than a match for the average Divine!
These monstrosities hurtled towards Skullius with shocking speed, even as Somanda's turn (with SoSei' effect) came to a close. The Undead minions attacked with frightening coordination, carrying his will.
Skullius, gritting his teeth, pointed at them and fired Ju`wtte and slashes in an effort to dismantle them, but they avoided the attacks, used each other as footholds and boosts to reach him, and landed critical attacks with their oddly shaped bodies. Their forms moved unpredictably. What Skullius thought to be a fist, could be a tail. What he thought to be a head, could be foot.
It was hard deflecting and countering.
Skullius roared and spilled Ju`wtte all over his body to block the creatures' attacks from all angles, but it was useless.
A massive throng of sky and water bathed in Undeath came whipping at Skullius with all the force of ten worlds. The Hybrid's Ju`wtte didn't have enough power to stop it. He was sent spiralling through the great void, and the enemies didn't relent. They chased after him still.
Skullius' body suddenly burned with turquoise and puce. He meant to use Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz, even though it was risky, but the Immoral came streaking over the large, strange bodies of Somanda's minions to reach him and land a vicious right blow to his face.
This successfully interrupted Skullius' mobilisation of Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz.
"You're becoming just the perfect little anomaly, aren't you?" Fulgardt struck him again. "Stubborn. Packed with all three Parallel powers somehow. Delusional." He struck Skullius again. "I haven't decided how to kill you, in all truth." He dodged Skullius' sudden lunge, broke his arm and set him up for a perfect tackle by one of the Undead minions. A moment later, Fulgardt had Skullius by the throat. "Do you know how they treat anomalies like you out there? Do you know what Primeval Deities would do if they got their hands on someone like you?"
Fulgardt laughed and blasted Skullius with blows in all directions, sending him spinning and bleeding all into the void.
"Nothing makes a perfect anchor for a world like an anomaly, brat! Instead of the souls of Drakkens, or some niche power developed to make a world Rich, they use people like you, stuffing them deep into a world's core to make it special! Maybe that will be your fate!"
The revelation shocked Skullius.
…But not as much as the sudden appearance of his four Apostles behind the Immoral.
A small portal had appeared and the four had been spitted out.
Red Rage shone brighter than ever. Somehow, when he saw the weary look in Skullius' eyes, he understood everything. His saw his master's struggle; not the obvious one of might. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝘯𝘦𝘵
"My liege, we are here to reinforce you!" he declared, deliberately avoiding the word save.
Skullius appreciated that.
When Fulgardt turned to the Apostles with annoyance, Skullius called out: