IN was a grotesque, black demon with six arms and a face livid with ecstasy. Two great, hurled horns rose from the top of its head, curling backwards and shimmering every other second with puce and turquoise. The top pair of its arms met in the middle, one palm over the other, while the other pairs had their fingers interlocked in front of its chest.

MU might have been a golden angel with the face of someone who'd just been liberated from 1,000 years of slavery. Its first pair of arms had the hands clapped together as though in prayer, and the last were clasping a shortsword sculpted to its body with a hilt that had cryptic writing: they were bitten by an enemy with no fangs.

The new PHANTASMIC RETAINERS.

The two objects would form an inescapable circuit from which a complicated but extremely effective set of attacks could be hosted.

'I'll have to try it on actual enemies, but for now, all the combinations seem feasible, even if they are executed within the great void,' thought Skullius. 'The only thing I'm uncertain about, even in theory, is the scale of the destruction. Here's to hoping I don't turn my own allies into collateral.'

As excited as Skullius was, he didn't have time to patiently try out all the combinations he had set with the [Circuit of Impunity]. In all honesty, he wasn't sure the Mirror Box could handle them.

Thus, the Hybrid Warmoth moved on to the last thing he wanted to upgrade on himself before tackling the main course – the critical reason why he was here.

In future battles, Skullius was sure he was going to have a better chance of defeating enemies by either exploiting Exotic Parlous Natures, or using parts of his arsenal outside the Common Reality Leagues – at least where his Default Body was concerned.

Articles of power outside the Common Reality Leagues were the essence of what made the War Body formidable, and Skullius meant to exploit that fact even in his Hybrid Warmoth form.

'Mortal Ruin…' he thought as he traced a finger on the discolored armour under his midnight black [Avant Atelier].

It felt like eons ago when Skullius acquired this ability. It came about as a result of the <CURSED BLOOD> he obtained from absorbing the Luminant Seed in the Temple of Unlusted Tears.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.613.)

That blood had allowed him to do things no human could do, and the further it was refined, the better it got, eventually leading to Mortal Ruin, a blood-type property that manifested as a swift, flexible attack that could slay multitudes of enemies in a breath.

…At least that was what it had been back then.

Now, Skullius could infuse any blood with Mortal Ruin properties, and his primary use for it so far had been as simple, sturdy armour.

Truly, it was a waste.

'That won't do.' He clicked his tongue.

Skullius had funneled Ju`wtte and Litte into Mortal Ruin in the Second Layer of the Hatcher, trying different methods to enhance it.

'All of them worked, and their combinations had thrilling effects too,' Skullius thought. 'Just like Kenno, I feel there's a variety of ways I can take this. Too many choices. Mortal Ruin can evolve in pretty much any path I decide.' He twisted his lips. 'But some of them feel like cheap replicas of what I've already achieved with [True Severance: Emphatic Dissonance] and [Circuit of Impunity]. I should aim for something simpler yet equally as lethal.'

He imbued Mortal Ruin with both Ju`wtte and Litte.

The armour wriggled like a mass of worms, faint hints of merigold and golden light suffusing from it.

…But that wasn't all.

Striking Ju`wtte against the air, Skullius opened a gateway to another one of the dimensions the Colossus Warmoth had created.

The Pestilent Vault.

'I can afford to be liberal with this, right?' Skullius thought, skeptical.

Something oozed out of the gateway, an ebony vapor that coiled and swayed wantonly and lazily. It seemed to hiss as it fell from between the crackling Ju`wtte in clumps that Skullius pulled into his hands.

Cold Oblivion. The specialized poison that the Colossus Warmoth had developed – a poison lethal to anything except the Warmoth species.

Skullius had used it to weaken the Doom Knight he'd fought on Aigas. Indeed, while the Cold Oblivion was so violent that it could blacken mortals with cold in an instant, for Divines and Deities, a significant amount was needed to put them down swiftly; perhaps the only caveat working against the poison. The Pestilent Vault couldn't produce that much Cold Oblivion at a time. Even now, Skullius was lamenting reducing his already shallow stores of the poison.

…But what he meant to do with it was more than a consolation in exchange.

Closing the Pestilent Vault, the King fed the clumps of vapor into the spasming Mortal Ruin on his body.

The [Avant Atelier] meant to reach in and get a taste for the poison, perhaps to fashion yet another Parlous Nature based on Cold Oblivion, but Skullius stopped it.

"Nothing you make right now comes close to the original in potency, and I'd rather not have any version of a poison ability that's limited by the Common Reality Leagues. That might make it weak against the Primeval Deities."

And that was why Skullius was going about it this way.

This poison couldn't be an Andori or a Parlous Nature. No. It had to be unique.

He had every fiber, no, every cell of his Mortal Ruin absorb as much of the Mortal Ruin as they could while being reinforced by Ju`wtte and accelerated by Litte. The former enhanced the richness of the blood, elevating the potential information it could carry, while the latter quickened the process of Cold Oblivion absorption. An instant later, Skullius produced even more Mortal Ruin by extracting the little blood he had in his body. (He'd only recently discovered that he had any at all.)

This caused his armour to start changing. It obtained a dark vermillion hue as soon as the last of the Cold Oblivion was absorbed, and then it hardened. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The armour was vibrant and segmented, as though Skullius was wearing dozens of cylindrical pieces of vermillion metal that reached up to all of his extremities except his face. Each segment was lined with a line of Runes suffused with a pale glow, making it seem regal and even ominous.

But of course, the armour was flexible. It was hard and impenetrable when needed, but it could be vengeful, flexible, and swift as well. In both cases, it would not lose to a mid-level Void rank Treasure or a Void rank Exotic Parlous Nature.

[You have accomplished yet another impossibility!]

[You have developed an effective and efficient mechanism outside the Common Reality Leagues, curious even among Existential Parallels]

[You now have access to 'Numinous Ichor: Bane of Gods']

'There,' thought Skullius as he flexed his fingers and toes. Between his midnight black hooded jacket laced with Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz, In and Mu, and the armour of hard blood, he felt invincible in close, mid, and long-range.

A lot remained to be tested, but that was for later.

Now, it was time to create invincibility for his followers – his friends – who would besiege Deadmanland with him.

---

[Author's Note]

I'm reserving the in-depth explanations of these abilities for when Skullius uses them. They are better shown than told. That's coming soon, dw.